


Seventeen Pantomimes

by Gebiurl (fookin_tossah)



Category: The 1975 (Band)
Genre: Depression, Drinking to Cope, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts, Talks of racism, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2017-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-13 21:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3397733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fookin_tossah/pseuds/Gebiurl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re funny. And cute. But you’re broken. And not only broken, you’ve got pieces missing and your mouth tastes hollow. I tried to breathe you in, Matty, I tried to get lost in you. But all I could smell was the smoke, it burned my lungs. You’re a strong cigarette and a cup of black coffee in the morning, I need you for a wake me up. But nothing else.” </p><p>I watched her throat as she talked about me. All words true and heavy and poetic. She smoked quickly, and I was entranced in the way that she breathed so much smoke out. My smoke. It was me. She was removing me from her lungs and getting rid of the taste of my mouth.  </p><p>(Matty receives a mysterious letter and embarks on a journey of self discovery and love.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy :) Warning Matty's love interest is made out of paper.

Never. Date. A. Writer. **  
**

They demand nothing but your all and nothing less will ever do.

So when two writers, very different writers on different spectrums meet….let’s say all hell can break loose.

It starts with a letter, so honest and pure. It’s handwritten messily, tear splotches all over it’s smudged pages, ink sometimes spilled. One would think it archaic, something of the old world written by someone on a bit of parchment with a quill and lit by nothing but the sun and candles.

One would be wrong, of course. The contents itself aren’t of archaic origins. It’s new. It’s modern. It’s thinking is something fresh and straight out of tumblr blogs and John Green novels with a bit of pretentious thinking.

It’s a letter.

One personal, long letter.

I don’t remember who gave it to me. It’s all a bit of a blur. With the constant touring and drinking, it’s a lot for your body to endure. It’s a lot for MINE to endure. The letter isn’t even something I expect at this point. All I do remember is this small, thick envelope being thrust into my hand as a bunch of giggling girls back away.

It was all strange, really. I should’ve known that strange things lead to….stranger things.

But to get there, I have to start a bit further back than this.

Before the letter.

Before writer meets writer.

Before, well….before.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

“The name The 1975, well. Really. It’s been romanticized quite a lot. I received a poetry book on holiday and when I got home, I read it. And there were these little hand written notes and—and the ‘the’ really stuck out to me.  _The 1975_. I dunno. It looked cool,” I laugh and the interviewer nods.

I suppose they expect some deep meaning out of it. But I think they overlook the facts and sometimes it’s not about what I say, it’s about what I don’t say. Like why was I reading poetry. Why did I take a book from a stranger. Where was my mum when I took a book from a stranger. People don’t get to the really good questions.

They just accept what I tell them and ignore everything else. Pity, really. What a waste of a question.

I lean back against the seat a bit, listening to the same questions be asked—they’re all just worded differently. So I answer them the same, just word them differently, as well. George has heard it enough times that he can answer them too.

It’s all the same.

My eyes wander, looking around the room as George’s lower baritone voice rumbles on. We have a show tomorrow. I’m far too sober right now to deal with that.

So when it’s all done, we leave and go back to the tour bus. Hann laying on the couch and lazily picking at his guitar as Ross does what Ross does best, just sits back and does nothing. I do what I do best, that’s grab the wine bottle and start to drink from it. But I’ve got time now. I take out a cup to stay feeling classy.

“Do you ever want—want something, like, different?” I ask, a while later and nicely buzzed.

I’m not talking to anyone in particular. Just someone who will listen.

“What do you mean?” George asks, moving to sit in front of me.

“Different. Like. Everything just gets so repetitive. Life is all about patterns but even patterns have variations and right now it just seems like ours is….”

“Too pattern-y?”

“Yeah. Exactly. Don’t you want something different? I’m not even saying anything big, but, like, just something to offset this balance.”

“Something to tip the scales, a bit,” he says and pours himself some wine.

“Good lad. You’re getting me, you’re getting me.” I watch as he drinks and I pour myself some more. “Love is like wine, you’ll be fine without it. But if you….indulge in it, it’s good for the heart.”

“Clever. Where’d you read that one from?”

“I didn’t read it. I made it up. Thought of it all on my own.”

“Wine is good for the heart, but shit for the liver,” Hann says.

I toss my head back and groan. “Ugh. Hann. Buzz and poetry kill. Don’t ruin my moment. I felt like…quick, someone name a poet!”

No one says anything

“Useless, all of you,” I groan, shaking my head.

“So was that line of poetry you made up.”

“Hann. Get the fuck out of my tour bus. Just jump out.”

And we all laugh.

It’s nice but…we’ve been a band for ten years. This banter isn’t anything new. I know these lads more than I know myself. I know the lonely streets of the world. I probably won’t walk all of them, but if you walk one you know them all. That’s just like people, you meet one, you know them all. But we’re all looking for one that’s different and makes us like…I don’t know. Fucking happy. The person that tips the scale and makes our lives different.

I’m not looking for a person. I’m just looking for SOMETHING to tip the scales again. And if it’s a person, that’s alright. If not, that’s alright too. Can’t do much about it.

………………………………………………………………………………………………..

It happens in November. When the weather is a bit nasty and cold, never taking mercy on four sleep deprived lads. The holes in my jeans make my legs break out in constant goosebumps.

November, when the crowds are larger than I’ve ever dreamed of. The cold won’t stop the people from lining up outside the venue hours before and after just to see us. Wearing my muppet jacket actually becomes necessary against the cold.

November. That’s when I get The Letter.

It’s right after a show, my minds all fucked and my body hurts but fuck. This was an amazing show and the fans were even better and I feel like it’s my duty to come out here and personally thank them all. We’ve all been slacking on meeting fans so why not start up again?

Their screams are deafening when they see us all and it’s a bit….humbling to think that this many people are affected by our music. That this many people care what I have to say. Like. They’re this dedicated to us four blokes. It’s baffling and insane.

“Matty, can you sign this?”

“Matty, can you hug me?”

“Matty, can I have a kiss?”

“Matty.”  
“Matty.”

“Matty.”

I start to get overwhelmed with how many people are calling for me. Left and right, all around me. There’s just so much. I’m trying so hard to get to everyone. I swear. There’s just so many and it’s hard to control them. They’re not in line anymore.

“Matty.”  
“Matty.”  
“Fuck me, Matty!”

“Matty!”

I don’t remember the face of the person who gives me the letter. It’s not something I expect in the middle of this chaos. I’m half dead and continuing to die and someone thrusts the parcel into my hand, a bunch of girls giggling as they back away from me. I pocket it without another thought and it lays heavily against my chest.

We’re escorted away after that. Too much chaos and noise. We get shoved back into the bus and the girls chase after it. It’s too ridiculous.

I fall asleep almost right after that, lulled by the constant roaring of the engine and the soft vibrations of the road. The parcel almost entirely forgotten.

Almost.

I received a letter in November.

But I didn’t read it until December.

 

……………………………………………………………..

“There’s, like, this void in my chest—er—not even in my chest. In my soul. In my entire quintessential being. And no matter what I do, it never gets filled. Like drugs, hardcore drugs help me not care that it exists. Drinking helps, I don’t know, like make me forget about it. It distracts me but the ache is always still present, know what I mean? I feel unfulfilled and I’m still searching for something that helps with it,” I explain to an interviewer off camera.

She nods, puts a hand to her chest. “I know exactly what you need,” she says suggestively.

I’ve just poured my heart and soul to her. Why do people do that? It happens in movies all the time, where someone pours their heart out and someone finds it sexually appealing. Is that why the naked body is so sexually arousing? Not because the body of itself, because we, as humans, like people to bare themselves to us. Body or soul. And we confuse the two. So even as I pour my heart out, it’ll give them a rise because I’m bare and open on some level.

“And what do I need exactly?” I question back, looking over her slowly.

“You need to buy me a drink and then come back with me to my place and we can discuss more of this…void.”

I look her over again. “I think we can discuss other things other than the void.”

I can forget about that avoid if I’m between her legs. That stops mattering. As long as I’ve got something to keep me at bay. A nice shag will definitely stop me from over thinking.

And so I stop thinking and buy her the drink she wants and she leads me back up to her room. It’s just like I thought. Nice, warm, fulfilling for the short amount of time I get to be with someone. Maybe I pretend things are a little different, take my time in being with her until it’s all over and she’s offering me a cigarette afterwards, sitting in bed, wrapped up in a dirty blanket.

I take the fag offered to me and inhale the smoke into my lungs, smiling a bit. It calms me down further, helps me breathe a bit. A little ironic, but whatever.

“I’m going to have to go soon,” I tell her, looking over at her.

“I wasn’t asking you to stay,” she replies, cigarette in her mouth and looking every bit of tempting. “Do you know why girls are falling over to get to you?”  
I shake my head, fingers caressing her bare knees. “No fucking clue.”  
“Because, as women, we have this need to fix what’s broken. Sometimes we forget our pussy isn’t fucking magic.”

“Feels magical.”

She laughs out and throws her head back. “You’re funny. And cute. But you’re broken. And not only broken, you’ve got pieces missing and your mouth tastes hollow. I tried to breathe you in, Matty, I tried to get lost in you. But all I could smell was the smoke, it burned my lungs. You’re a strong cigarette and cup of coffee in the morning, I need you for a wake me up. But nothing else.”

I watched her throat as she talked about me. All words true and heavy and poetic. She smoked quickly, and I was entranced in the way that she breathed so much smoke out. My smoke. It was me. She was removing me from her lungs and getting rid of the taste of my mouth.

I leaned in and kissed her mouth before she could put the dying little fag back into her mouth.

“You taste so sad,” she whispered against my mouth, hands coming up to cup my cheeks gently, thumbs gently rubbing my skin.

“You taste of fear,” I whisper back, mouth still brushing hers. “Who hurt you?” I open my eyes and watch her face, biting her lip and opening her eyes to reveal very sad ones looking back at me.

“Lots of people,” she finally replies quietly.

“I have that backwards problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lots of people have hurt you, that means they’ve been important enough to be able to hurt you—but lots of people haven’t hurt me. No one has. Not in that way, at least.” It’s better to have love and lost than to have never really loved at all, right?

“Lucky, boy.”

“No, I think you’re the lucky one…….it would be an honor to have my heart broken by you.”  
She smiles widely at that and laughs, leaning in to kiss me. “Matty Healy.”

“Yes?”

“Get the fuck out of my life.”  
I laugh and nod, kissing her one last time before getting off the bed and getting dressed. She walks me out of the door and we kiss again.

“What an honor to have met you, darlin’,” I murmur.

“Likewise. Remember me.”

“How could I forget someone like you?” I reply quietly and nod, walking away.

I don’t remember her name.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

My eyes don’t leave the neverending scenery. We’re all on the bus again, going towards who the Hell knows and I just can’t get myself to even care. It’s silent. That’s how I want it.

Sometimes being in this business makes it so that it’s always loud and sometimes, like now, I need this silence. I need to be able to just drown in it. I sigh softly and I feel the seat beside me shift and I fall towards the weight almost immediately.

“You’re quiet,” George points out.

I peel my eyes away from the blurry haze of the trees to look into his familiar eyes. “So?”

“Quiet means you’re thinking and you thinking never leads to good things,” he jokes and smiles a bit at me. He stretches out his long legs and I snort.

“Giant git. I’m fine.”

“How was it?”

“How was what?”

“With that girl you went home with?”

I laugh softly. “Jealous, Georgie?”

He rolls his eyes at me. “You’ve—you’ve just been weird since you went with her,” he says.

I sigh and then groan and lean back in the chair we’re on. “She said I tasted sad.”

“Sounds pretentious.”

“Oi! I’m trying to open up my heart and soul to you here. Don’t be bloody rude.”

He laughs more and nods. “Alright. Sorry, sorry. Go on.”

“She said I tasted sad. Like…who says that, ya know? How does someone taste sad.”  
He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

I sigh again and lay my head back on the headrest, looking up at the tour bus ceiling.

Patterns. Only patterns. Patterns drive me crazy.And this is all a pattern. No matter what I do, I can’t escape from them. I’m fucking trapped and I can’t do anything about it.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More sad Matty.

It’s December, a time for family and for giving things to each other to show how much we all appreciate one another. It’s where mothers fuss too much over the length of your hair, or when they bake just a bit too much and they cook a whole lot more. Where fathers take longer hours at work to be able to pay for the surplus amounts of things needed in the house.

It’s all a bunch of poppycock.

I bitterly make a face at the Christmas ornaments in my face as the roadies set up for our show. Stupid red and green ball in my face.

“Why can’t we perform during the holidays?” I ask George, still glaring at the ornament.

“Because Hann and Ross would murder us. Besides, I like getting to see my family sometimes.”

I groan and curl my lip.

“Not all of us are blessed with hating our childhood homes, Matty,” Hann replies as he comes in and smiles at me glaring at the ball.

“And you’ll get to see Louis,” George reminds me.

“Fair point. But he’s out of school, I could bring him with me. Call Dave in here, I need to talk to him about possible acoustic shows.”  
“No. Matthew. Stop. Home for the holidays,” George says firmly and I whine.

“But I don’t wanna.”  
And they all laugh at me, bunch of good for nothing wankers. The lot of them. They just don’t get it. I don’t want this. I don’t want to spend time with my family. We’re so small. It’s not like their holidays where aunts and uncles come and go, it’s more like how much wine can mummy drink before she starts guilt-tripping me for always being gone.

I sigh and sink further down into the seat.

I used to like Christmas, like every other kid. I never believed in Santa, thank fuck my mum never bothered to lie to me about a petty thing like that. But I used to believe in the magic of Christmas, that maybe something would make mum just a bit happier and dad a bit less reserved.

How fucking stupid, no? I blame those holiday kid movies. They fuck people up when they’re young, make them believe in things that aren’t.

Sorry kids, no amount of holiday cheer will stop your drunk parents from drinking some more.

“Matty, show time,” Dave announces and successfully pulls me from my negative (realistic?) thoughts and I have to go on stage, bottle of wine in hand.

I’ve got to give the people what they want, and what they want is a fucked up Matty. Happy Holidays you sadistic fucks. Here’s my heart on the floor bleeding for you all and you still want more. You just want my ruin.

And I give it to them and get properly smashed to the point where George has to carry me off stage at the end of the night and as I’m in the bus, I can hear them screaming for me to come out and I cover my ears.

Please go away.

Please.

I can’t anymore.

I close my eyes tightly and I wish them away but they never do. They just want more from me. I can’t give them more. They only go away when we drive away and I hear people talking about how that was their favorite show yet. Of course it is. The one where I got so smashed I couldn’t even remember lyrics. I probably won’t even remember these thoughts. Ha. People are funny that way. They like me the best when I’m reaching my worst.

 

.................................................................

 

I hate planes. Trains, on the otherhand, are nice cause I get those few hours to myself and alone in the train cart. I get to write new music, or watch movies, even read a fucking book. I just do whatever the fuck I want without all this pressure of flying or the potential danger of falling out of the sky.

My body relaxes into the seat and I put up my legs so that they stretch out before me. The forgotten letter is still in my jacket, I can feel the weight of it there, heavy against my chest. I still don’t take it out, I’ll read it some other time. It’s just a letter.

My laptop gets propped up on my legs and I start to catch up on past episodes and I always, always, get distracted and think of things to google and research. Today is not an exception.

I always google the weirdest things.

My head turns to look out of the window to see the snow falling. It’s not like in movies where it falls slowly and it’s beautiful. It’s cold and harsh and it’s coming way too fast. It’s a metaphor for life. I smirk to myself at that and write it down in my notes. Sometimes I get strokes of genius.

But then during my strokes of genius and watching things and even googling other things that I get that ache. An ache for a place that doesn’t exist. I want to feel homesick. I want to have someone to come home to.

Louis is as close to that as I get but he lives with mum and I don’t get homesick because of her. I get roadsick, if anything. I want to leave when I’m there. It’s not my place. Not my home.

My head lolls back and I close my eyes. The weight’s there again, right against my fragile heart. The letter. Maybe I’ll read it over this break or something. Seems long. Maybe there’s pictures. Or nudes. I smirk at that thought and then sigh again.

I miss a home I’ve never had and I ache for someone to miss.

 

...................................................................

 

“Matty, dear, could you and Louis run to the store and get us some wine? We’re running low?” Mum shouts through the hallway.

Me and Louis are in his room and he’s insisting on updating his snapchat. Loser. Kids these days and their phones. I think mine’s here....maybe. We make another face into the camera and I completely ignore my mum.

“Matty!”  
I duck face.

“Matthew!”  
I give a peace sign.

“Oi!” She opens the door and I turn around to look at her.

“Yes?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I need you to go get me wine.”  
“Of course I heard you. I chose to ignr--

“We’ll go in a sec, mum,” Louis interrupts me and I scowl.

She happily nods and then leaves.

“She’s not so bad anymore, ya know?” He says softly.

“No?” I ask lightly and look back at him.

“Nah. She’s alright,” Louis tells him and pauses for a minute before continuing. “She misses you.”

I groan and sit up from the bed, “time to get up and go,” i say and stretch out. I definitely don’t want to have this conversation, especially not right now. I am on holiday.

“Matty.”

“You coming?” I ask and ignore that completely, pulling on my Doc Martens and grabbing my jacket instead.

“Yeah!”

He gets ready too and we both head out so that we can drive to the store, the music playing REALLY loudly as we rap along to Kendrick Lamar. I should’ve been a rapper. I would’ve been the greatest worst rapper in the world.

Louis laughs at my idea and we do what we were sent to do. He’s the only reason I ever come back anymore. Ever since my parents decided to split up, I knew I’d have to come home as often as possible. I felt guilty even leaving him in the first place but mum would kill me if she thought I was encouraging to either drop out or take his studies on the road. But he likes not always travelling. On family trips, he used to always complain so him staying is the best option because it’s what he wants. Still makes me sad. I wish I was around more often for him.

 

.....................................................................

 

Blah blah blah simply having a ‘wonderful’ Christmas time. Blah blah Christmas, presents, dinner, fucking Santa Clause. Fuck Christmas.

.....................................................................

 

“Mum! Have you seen my shoes?” Louis calls out and I watch as she brings the shoes over to him and he puts them on, looking back at me. “How do I look?”

“Like a pratt.”  
“Perfect, that’s what I was striving for.”

“Have a girl to kiss at midnight?” I ask him lightly, I remember when I used to have parties to go to for New Year’s. I used to go with George and company and get real drunk before it was actually legal for us to get drunk. I smile a bit.

“Not yet,” he says confidently and I laugh.

“Have fun, little man.”

“You too, loser,” he laughs and they leave. Both of them.

They’re gone.

They’ve all moved on without me. Louis’s going out with his friends to some little kid party and mum is going out with her friends and her new boyfriend. She invited me to go meet him but no. He’s not dad. And dad, well, he’s with his new family, I guess. But their plans didn’t include me.

I sigh and move to call George. “Hey, mate!”

“Hey! Sorry! I can’t really hear you, we’re playing an intense game of charades,” he laughs into the phone. Georgie has always been the family type. A real big mama’s boy. I smile a bit at the thought.

“Oh, sorry, mate. Was just gonna ask if you had my shirt but I think I found it.”  
“It’s alright. How everything over there?”

I bite my lip and look around the now empty house. “Really good, man, really good. Mum’s making dessert right now and dad’s here. Him and Louis are outside, the fucking lights fell off. Dumbasses can’t do anything right,” I laugh but it hurts. It makes a lump swell in my throat as I lie.

George laughs. “Oh god. Send my love to them all.”  
“I will! You too, mate!”

We hang up and I stare at my phone. I won’t even bother with Ross cause only God knows where he and John have gone. Hann?

I call him quickly and he doesn’t even answer. I try him again, biting at my nails a little desperately and listen as the phone rings and rings and rings until it finally tells me, again, that he’s not there and to leave a message.

My chest feels really tight as I take the phone from my ear and just stare at it. Everyone’s got someone, except for me. Doesn’t matter. I can watch netflix and--or I could write, play some music for myself. I can read. I can watch youtube--even watch the New York ball drop. Loads of things I could do alone. It really doesn’t matter.

I leave my phone downstairs and I head upstairs to the guest room, grabbing a bottle of wine before I get there, and go inside. I’m ok, really. Being alone on New Years isn’t the worst thing in the world. I will survive. I’ve been through worse.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and look around the lonely room. There’s...it’s just me. I’m alone. I’ve got adoring fans and sold out concerts and I’m alone on New Years. I've got friends that I’ve been friends with for over a decade and a family but neither thought to.....ok. That’s ok.

I’m ok.

I’m not fucking ok.

I’ve locked myself in this room but it’s not like anyone will try to get in. No one’s here. No one’s ever fucking here and at this point I would take the screaming fans begging me for more because they’re actually there. They know what I am--or at least they think they do.

They think I drink for fun, to get smashed and be able to cool my nerves before a show. I’ve stopped telling that lie to myself for a while now. I confront my fears bravely with a bottle in my hand and the drink in my throat.

Throwing my head back and taking a swig of the drink, I can see them all as clear as fucking day. George and his family who love him more than anything and are always calling and worried and missing him. Ross and John who have each other and always fucking disappear to be alone. And Hann. Hann who embraces the loneliness and doesn’t let it get to him. I can see them all clearly in my head. I can see them so fucking clear in my head, all so fucking happy. But where are they now? Where’s Louis or my mum?  Where’re are these friends that I've had for ten years?

Not. Fucking. Here.

Fuck Louis, I only came for him and he’s going to fucking leave me for what? Psychotic and possessive friends who actually don’t give a shit about him. And my mother and father. Fuck them both. I’m not religious but they can go to fucking hell. They did this. They destroyed our family and they destroyed me and now they’re happy and I have to fucking suffer. I have the memories of us as a fucked up family, but a family, nonetheless. Don’t they remember that too or am I the only one still holding on to that?  

Why the fuck get married and start a family if you don’t plan on sticking around? I’m so angry at all of them.

And you know what? Fuck Gemma too, in all of her happiness in fucking Germany with her new friends and her new boyfriend. They all abandoned me. All left me after they swore they loved me.

“Prove it, don’t say it,” I say bitterly to them and I take a swig from the drink again.

The bottle is starting to become as empty as I am and I become desperate to find more but I fucking CAN'T. I can't find it in this new house that’s not MY house, not the one I grew up in. It doesn’t have my family in it. Doesn't have anything in it.

I scream and throw the empty bottle at the wall. I watch it shatter and  I wish the walls would shatter so I wouldn't be trapped in this fucking place anymore.

That’s what I am. I’m trapped. I’m trapped in tour buses, in hotels, in houses, in my skin, in patterns. Every little thing I do is just another trap and I’m so sick of it all. I just want to be ok.

I don’t want to be alone anymore.

My breathing becomes shallow and quick and I have to put my head between my legs,

holding my head in my hands. These feelings have been building and bubbling over and now I’m fucking drowning in them. This fucking loneliness. This emptiness. This goddamn void. It’s too much.

I don’t want this.

Why is it so hard to want to be with me? Not with the idea of me, but with actually me. With all of my flaws.

I start to cry, whole body shaking with my sobs. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want this. My hands fist up in my hair and I scream, listening to it echo around me. There’s no one hear to stop the sound or check if I’m ok.

I could kill myself and all they would find is the dead body and my fucking suicide letter to them.

This feeling of emptiness worsens and I get so cold that I have to grab my jacket, putting it on only to feel the weight of the long forgotten letter. My hand reaches in and I crawl back on the bed.

This person wrote it for me to read, I’ll be damned if I don’t fucking do it. My hands shake as I open it up, seeing how messy it’s written. Actually fucking handwritten, I haven’t seen one like this in a while.

I wipe my face as I unfold it and my eyes scan over the words.

 

_Dear The 1975_

_  
I want to write you this because one of your songs has broken my heart. First off, fuck you. Second of all, thank you... _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know the actual state of Matty and his family and their relationship--sorry I make him kind of hateful towards them.>
> 
>  
> 
> Much love.  
> xx


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Letter will not be shown in one complete go nor will it be shown linearly. So if certain things seem off or weird, it's because they'll be talked about and explained later. Thank you and enjoy :)

_Dear The 1975_

_I want to write you this because one of your songs has broken my heart. First off, fuck you. Second of all, thank you._

_Robbers._

_An ode to Quentin Tarantino's True Romance. An ode to Bonnie and Clyde. An ode to all of those sick fucks just destined to ruin each other but somehow manage to fucking come out on top._

_Why?  
Because Robbers isn’t about harming each other, it’s about harming everyone else for each other. Imagine that. A love so selflessly selfish that you would rather hurt the rest of the world than hurt the love of your life._

_How cruel is it to sing that._

_It’s not the story itself-though very beautiful-but the feel of the story. People so driven by love that the bad things they do for each other don’t seem so bad in retrospect. Love conquers all, right?_

_Love is at the root of all things good and evil. That’s what drives people to do things so insane. It drove you to write this song. The want of this love._

_I want it too._

_And that’s why I’m saying fuck you to you._

_Love is like a super nova; when it explodes, it’ll turn into a black hole and suck everyone in..........._

I feel like a rabid animal trapped in a small cage for a Carnival Show, starving to death. And this. Whatever I’ve just read is a meal someone’s given me. It soothes the ache and hunger for a bit and I can sleep through the night without feeling overwhelmed by the hollowness in me.

It’s a sort of sick pleasure I get, to know someone else feels so overwhelmed by these feelings, by these desires and needs. I read the whole letter in its entirety twice before I knock out on my bed, lids so heavy and tired after attempting to read it a third time. I started the New Year’s off just right--not with what I wanted or expected, but with what I needed. I started off with The Letter.

...............................................................................

The Letter is still clutched in my hand when I wake up the next morning. I take a slow deep breath and blink my eyes open, squinting as the sun hits my eyes. It’s January 1st. I kind of feel out of place now. I think that’s the problem with being here.

I don’t belong here anymore. I’ve aged out of coming home to a happy home and a room of my own with mummy and daddy.

My eyes scan over the unfamiliar room, eyeing the broken glass on the floor. Fuck. I’ve got to clean that up. My eyes then glance at the letter and I look over it once more before folding it back up and tucking it into the jacket, taking it off and stretching out.

I feel fucking terrible. There’s this pounding in my head and my stomach feels all weird. I feel sick.

But I have to clean up the mess I’ve made.

I get out of the bed, body feeling a bit sore and my throat feels like it’s on fire. I move out of the room and towards the kitchen area where mum likes to keep her cleaning stuff. I just take what I need to clean it up before I’m putting it all back and I move to start packing up my things.

I’ve stayed long enough. I don’t owe anybody anything else. I stayed for a shitty Christmas and I stayed for an even shittier New Year’s, I’m done. I don’t even have a clue where I’ll go for the next week we still have off, but it won’t be here. Better to be alone than in bad company.

A couple of hours later, and a few confused goodbyes, I’m back on a train to go to the other side of London to my own flat. Louis didn’t get why I was leaving so soon. Neither did mum. Or maybe they did know, they had to have seen the broken wine bottle pieces in the trash. They’re just choosing to ignore it.

Anyone else would. It’s just like when you see someone you know and they ask you how you are, the initial reaction is to say ‘fine’. That’s honestly all anyone wants to hear. They don’t really care how you are, if they did they would have been more concerned when you spent New Year’s alone. Or when you heard about your son having a breakdown on stage.

She knows. She just doesn’t care.

My legs curl in and I put on my headphones, slowly taking out the folded up Letter and carefully opening it. I read it from the beginning again.

.................................................................

This flat is empty and quiet and clean. It’s just how George and I left it. He always makes me clean before we go and....yeah. Here I am. I didn’t think I’d be back here so soon, I thought it would surely be after the tour ended or something. I guess I was wrong.

My bare feet pad through the flat on the cold wood, moving towards the kitchen to get a cuppa started. I’ve already set up in my room, The Letter sitting out on my bed, patiently waiting to be read as I impatiently move back to sit down and curl up.

My eyes scan over the words again, starting to get familiarized with them. It’s so strange. Usually by now I would have been distracted with the need to be in constant and different stimulations. But I just stay put to read.

There’s something about this Letter that keeps me chained to my bed. But it’s not a bad thing. It’s more like an anchor for me, right now. A strong anchor when there’s a boat in the middle of a storm.

That was a fabulous analogy. I should write that down.

................................................................

It starts to consume me, The Letter. I have this whole week off and I have no intention of leaving my flat until I get to a certain point in The Letter. Something about the words makes me crave the outside world. Makes me want a change of scenery to something more....fitting and poetic.

As poetically messy my room is, I still need something more appropriate. I move to get changed, tucking it into my jacket before I leave.

My eyes squint at the amount of actual sunlight there is outside, making me smile as the sun touches parts of my skin and warms it up on my way to the park. It’s not the biggest or the greenest of parks, but there’s a little cafe near it that I can enjoy the view of the limited green without actually going into it.

I sit down with a steaming cuppa, waiting for it to cool down some. I take out the papers and open it up, relaxing back and reading.

_......It’s funny. I hadn’t written anything for just me in a year. A whole year. A writer who only writes because they asked them to. Isn’t that strange? Sad?_

_I hadn’t been able to, no matter what I did. One day I sat down in a little coffee shop in my town, it’s the closest to the little community college they have here, and I got out my laptop to write more of this story I had been working on. I sat there and stared at it for, like, hours. Nothing came to me. I just assumed it was a little writer’s block._

_One year later and I still haven’t touched that story, nothing comes to me anymore. Not until I heard your music--well it wasn’t just your music. It’s what your music stands for--what you’ve said in interviews and stuff._

_La poesie est dans la rue. Poetry is in the street. Sometimes I think to myself how powerful that statement is and I always go back to that mural, knowing I can’t do that. But....but I do other things. I write. Poetry is in the street and not just in the mural. When people read your words and feel them, it stays with them and travels with them. Poetry is in the street and in coffee shops, and libraries, and in tiny little classrooms, and even in my too small of flat because it lives in me. It’s impossible to be as uncultured as it is to be not-poetic. Poetry is everywhere. Its even in these silly words that I write to you, staring out into the mostly empty streets in the stupid coffee shop where I think I lost my passion of writing. Poetry is in me. It always has been and always will be._

_I think your music has helped me see that--helped me realize how much writing can affect someone. Yours has affected me so deeply, but I thank you for that because you’ve ignited this spark in me again, rekindled the dwindled and struggling little flame......_

 

I know that feeling. I’m supposed to be writing the third album and I haven’t written anything in the past year, either. I’ve only reused and recycled material from before. This tour has taken everything from me, and I fear it’s taking parts of me that I never thought could be taken from.

It’s scary. I thought I would always stay this cocky lad who drinks a bit too much and sleeps around just a bit more. I didn’t think I’d be this. An ex addict writer who can’t even write anymore. Or even do the things he was addicted to.

So if you take the addict and writer out of me, what’s left?  
If that person on stage is just me fucking  _pretending all the damn time_ , who the fuck am I? What am I?

They say to dehumanize a person just idolize or ignore them.

But what about both? Am I less than a dehumanized human? Am I an animal? I’m starting to feel like one.

A wild animal trapped in this human skin, an animal who is hungry and desperate but not for food. For Love. For touch. For anything just to make me _.....feel._

The writer thanks me in their letter, for whatever reason. But they claim I’ve helped to rekindle their flame. I can’t help feel envious of that. Of even this Letter I keep reading. Because I didn’t write it.

I used to write like this, so raw and unfiltered. I don’t know what’s happened to me.

I don’t know who I am anymore......

The writer also talked about something about love and explosions. So if to love is to explode, is lack of love to implode?  
  
I think that’s a great way of putting how I feel.

Like I’m fucking imploding on myself and everyone’s too busy ignoring me or worshipping  _Matty Healy_  to even give a shit. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some parts of this come from a very personal level. This may or may not be a build up to something *WINK WINK  
> Big italicized chunks of writing are The Letter and again, it is not linear. 
> 
> Like always, I hope you enjoy this. :)

There’s negative space in everything. Where there is a something, there is this black that surrounds it and molds it to create the shape that we are. That’s how my head works.

I’ve got nothing but negative space with fragments of words and sentences that sometimes I fuse together to create my songs. There’s this darkness in my head that shapes the person that I am. It’s not a bad thing, everyone has this darkness, for some it just takes more darkness to mold their shape.

But sometimes the darkness gets to be too much, it’s like my mind focuses in on the black instead of the light and it starts to consume me. My thoughts get jumbled up and I turn into this different person, a person who doesn’t have a reason to smile or joke or even wake up in the morning. I don’t like him. He’s looks into mirrors with bags under his eyes and then vomits into the toilet and avoids the sun because the drinking was too much from the night before.

But I’m not him right now. I’m Matty with too much negative space but too sober to feel.......depressed? Who am I kidding? I’m always depressed. I’ve always been too aware of the world while others are so pleasantly ignoring it.

And I don't think there's ever been a person in this whole world who's understood me completely. George is my best friend. But he doesn't understand, never has. Doesn't get the things that go on in my head and what I love about him is that he never pretends to. Never will. He's sincere.

Adam doesn't pretend to care what I'm even thinking about. I don't fucking blame him. I wouldn't care either. And Ross....Ross is too busy up John's ass to even notice. It's not a bad thing. They're in love and on tour together. But they just can't see what's wrong with me. It's hard to see a lonely person when you're not the lonely one.

But we've all been friends for years and even with all of my girlfriends and whatnot's, I've always been lonely. I've settled for partners that didn't connect with me on an intellectual level. They weren't my equal. They couldn't keep up--

"Matty, quit inner-monologuing about yourself and come help out, you twat," George says.

That yanks me right out of my thoughts and I set the Letter down on the table, walking towards the slightly crazed George to help him. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a mind reader in our midst. It's like he knows me or something.

I smile a bit at myself and help him move whatever he needed me to help him with, easily chatting about nothing. And I’m sober and not hungover. Which is a first. The only taste in my mouth is that of too much tea. If that were even possible.

“What’re you doing here just fucking around on holiday? Shouldn’t you be with your family or something?” He asks me and I shrug.

“Shouldn’t you be with yours?” I question him right back.

“I will be. Just came back to pick up some stuff.”

“Alright, mate, cheers. See you in another week.”

George sighs and sits beside of me, “what happened?”

“Nothing. I mean, just got sick of them.”

“Maybe you should’ve come with me to mine.”

“Nah, mate. Things happen for a reason.”

 

_I think things happen for a reason. I work a shitty job and they play shitty music and I’d heard your song for so long, one day I looked up the lyrics and then saw the music video. It was catchy. Liked your other stuff and then, I saw robbers and.....fuck. I just don’t even know what happened._

_I became obsessed with everything about that song. It was like I couldn’t get enough of it. I’m a slight masochist._

_In my life, I always said I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I shouldn’t be in this shitty town, working this shitty job, living in an even shittier flat._

_But If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have heard your song._

_Things always happen for a reason._

_In Doctor Who, Clara’s parents met because of a leaf. A leaf became the most important thing in their existence because that leaf brought them together. My two mates, two girls, fell in love after one of them helped the other discover One Direction. Imagine that, a boy band helped two lesbians fall in love. And me, a writer who couldn’t write, miserable and depressed at his job, listening to your song and suddenly I’m writing again._

_To get to point B, we need to have a point A to start with. Point A might be something big and obvious, but a lot of times it’s not. Sometimes point A is as little as a leaf, or a boy band, or a song on the radio._

 

Or sometimes a Letter, I think to myself.

“Matty, I’m heading out again. Sure you don’t want to come? My mum would love to see you again,” George says as he steps into my room, succeeding in pulling me from my own little world.

“Nah,” I reply, shaking my head as I look up from the paper.

He sits down on my bed and looks at The Letter in my hands, I hold it tighter and slightly turn it away so the words aren’t showing. It’s mine to read and mine alone.

“What’s that?” He asks, eyeing it over curiously.

“Fan mail.”  
He nods. “What’re you up to, Healy?” He asks, looking over me suspiciously.

“I’m...this is just something I need to do,” I say. “It’s good for me. I swear it is.”

“I trust you.”

“Good. You’ve got no reason not to.”

His mouth goes tight for a second, it means he disagrees but isn’t going to speak up about it. He knows better now than to question me. It’ll only push me away further. Sometimes I just need a little room to breathe and run away and I’ll come back to him and tell him everything. Usually it’s never this innocent.

Last time he let me run away and breathe I began to snort coke and I fell into a different crowd. They weren’t like George and my usual company. They were louder and loads more obnoxious than my usual crew, drinking to drown out their ‘trivial needs’ and snorting coke to forget their heart break. I needed that then. I needed it so badly.

They don’t sound much different than my usual gang of people but they were. They were destroying themselves and it was like this shared delusion we all had that us choosing to destroy ourselves was...like fucking poetic or something. I believed it was beautiful that us humans could find all these different ways to make ourselves numb. To make the pain stop. That we have evolved from just getting our bare essentials to the now where we all over indulge in gluttonous ways and even go beyond needs--we go into wants and even then we still manage to go too far. That’s what we all did. We had gone too far and wanted to go further.

We all wanted to die.

Until we were faced with the harsh reality that comes with this lifestyle. You praise and romanticize death and ruin long enough and it will...happen. It did happen. Just not in the way we planned.

I always saw death as a peaceful alternative to life. An eternal calm.

Until we all witnessed it. We all saw him, black and blue......and facedown.

It was an awful wake up call, but George was there to pick up the pieces once that life was enough (too much). George is always there and I don’t think I’ve ever thanked him for that. I’m a jerk in that sense. In many senses.

Whatever.

I’m too self-aware, I think. They say that’s step one of whatever list that is: admitting you have a problem. It’s an important step. But they don’t tell you there’s two parts to the first step; admitting you have a problem and need/are willing to get help.

I’m on step .5 because I’ll never admit to the second part. Just like how I’d rather watch my best friend walk away and not thank him for everything he’s done so far.

I’m a little fucked up, but it goes with my charm. And who would love me without it?

 

.................................................................................................................................

 

_We studied about black holes in class once. My teacher explained that if we could get a person in there and keep communication by just sending beeps every ten seconds, the further in we got the longer the beeps would take to get to Earth. Like it would start with getting the beeps every minute, then every ten minutes, then every year, every ten years until the world ended and the person traveling through would still be sending beeps every ten seconds and maybe, for them, only ten minutes would've passed. Ten._

_Ten minutes and the whole world is gone. Dead. Everything you know has been wiped out and you don't even know because you’re still sending beeps to nothing._

_They also theorize about the opposite, about white holes and, unlike black holes, they spit out constant matter instead of eat it. That got me to thinking; if a white hole is the opposite of a black hole, would traveling through it and sending beeps, would the beeps go backwards in time? Would you?_

_Like if you traveled INTO the white hole spitting out matter, you're going against it, going against time. You’re going back ten minutes, then every year, every ten years until everything you know is gone but only because it doesn't exist yet._

_I feel like that's my life, I'm not in a black hole, that just eats matter, I'm traveling backwards in a white hole that's spitting it out. One is the lesser evil but I'm still fucked either way. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you chose, sometimes what you pick--even if it's the harder thing to do and you're heading towards the light-- you still manage to lose everything. Even yourself....and you don’t even realize it._


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went to a concert last night and got very very inspired. If you don't know who The Antlers are, you're really missing out. But yeah, the story pace is going to start changing from here. Uhm. Enjoy my post concert depression fic-inspiring feels. :)
> 
> Also. Some religious talk happens and I'm not trying to offend or thrust beliefs onto anyone. It also doesn't represent my own beliefs--It's just a part of the letter.

 

 

“I wrote _Me_ when i was in a dark period of my life...”

  
_It was the worst possible time, feeling so alone. I felt like the world was so big and too busy and I didn’t belong. The way I thought just wasn’t the right way to think but I couldn't change it...._  
  
“It’s about the guilt I experiences at doing, uhm, certain things that I’m definitely not proud of. And being a brave soul and running away from all of that so I didn’t have to deal with it.”  
  
_As if it would change anything when I came back._  
  
“It’s also an apology to the people that I’ve hurt. And I’ve hurt many.....it’s a song about vulnerability.”  
  
_But vulnerability is where the best art comes from._  
  
“Vulnerability is where the best art comes from,” I finish.

 

Days like this, where they’re asking me the same questions in interviews, I don’t answer them the same anymore. Just because something is the same, it doesn’t mean it’s been milked dry of everything. There’s still so many things left to say regarding those same old questions.

Same with the letter, no matter how many times I read it, I know something different will stick to me. The Writer has details that I don’t pick up on all the time. I’ve come to notice that we have a lot in common, we’ve been cut from the same thread. They’re just like me. We’re outsiders.

.......................................................................................................

 

_I like the idea of time travel. Like I’m a big Doctor Who fan and everything. I like the idea of it all. And I know you’re not a religious person, quite the opposite. You kind of hate religion and all of that._

_But I don’t. And I got into a fight with my ex over this because he’s a hardcore atheist and something went wrong and I told him not to worry about it cause it’s what God wanted and we started to fight over it. He claims that it’s kind of hypocritical that we claim God has given us free will but yet it’s what ‘God intends’. And that if he was real we wouldn’t have all these shitty things happen to good people._

_I told him I believe in fate and destiny with God, but I also believe in free will. In Doctor Who, there was a fixed point in time and no matter what happened, it had to happen. But how it happens or the outcome isn’t written. So I believe that....let’s use a soulmate as an example. I meet my soulmate like I’m supposed to. But what if I wasn’t ok? What if I was severely depressed and I hated the world and I had no interest in people then. Especially my soulmate._

_My fixed point in time is meeting them, nothing is written in stone on how I feel or how I am when I meet them. I could meet them once, never see them again because I didn’t do anything about it. Or I could have been a jackass to them. Maybe I went to a restaurant and I’m one of those people who’s shitty to waiters and I was shitty to them so they want nothing to do with me._

_I met my soulmate and lost them. But it was a fixed point in time. No matter what, we would have met. But it’s up to us what we do with the fixed point._

_God, in my belief, gave us all free will. We have the ability to do great things, but also bad things. Yeah, there’s starving children and there’s wars and there’s a lot of shitty people in this world but that’s because we choose not to do something about it._

_I could give up my comfort and go live somewhere where people need me or donate all of my money to them. But I choose not to. I don’t like sitting here and putting blame on things that can’t take the blame._

_Religion is intolerant and corrupted because we have made it that way. Not God. Not fate or destiny. But because of our free will. It’s all fucked up cause of free will. But it’s also beautiful and amazing because of free will._

_Free will made you write beautiful music and you have these thoughts that are so....deep and you’re just this person whose mind works so differently than everyone else’s. I fell in love with a lot of your ideas and your mind because I never knew someone else existed that could think the things that I do. Not everything, but a lot of things._

_It’s a nice comfort to think maybe I’m not wrong for not thinking like the rest of the world. I don’t agree in you being hateful towards things, but it’s a comfort that you’re not scared in voicing your opinion. Just because the rest of the world doesn’t agree, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think it._

_Maybe you shouldn’t, I don’t know, be so rude about it but hey, I’m not telling you how to live your life. I’m just saying that instead of always complaining about it and how religion is hurting people and God is killing children, do something about it. Help people and save the children. We should be the change we want to see.........who did I just quote? I just quoted someone...._

 

I laugh a bit at that, folding up The Letter again. It’s not always deep and emotional. Most of it is, but there’s parts that make me laugh. They’re not scared to call me out, it’s just not worshipping me. I’m not someone to be worshipped anyways.

Gemma was like that, though. Open to things like that. I wasn’t. I’m set in my ways. We used to argue about it all the time. But it wasn’t bad because I knew it didn’t matter what we argued about, I would be coming home to her. That thought makes my chest ache.

“Matty, we’re here,” our tour manager says to me, pulling me away from my thoughts and I get out of the bus, The Letter back in its place in my jacket pocket.

There’s girls here already screaming for me and I’m a bit tired from having stayed up late reading and then waking up early for an interview, but it’s alright. It’s not going to kill me.

I get near them and pose for a few pictures, getting their names and talking to them. They tell me how much the music means to them and how they love me. They tell me things I want to hear, not need to hear. But it’s alright. Yeah, so far, it’s alright.

 

....................................................................

  


_All I wanted was for someone to love me. But then I realized that’s not what I wanted. I want someone to love me as much as I love them. For us to be equals. In the two big relationships I’ve been in, I’ve come to realize one thing: one person always loves the other more, and the one less in love is the one more in control. I’ve been both in the two relationships, first I was the one more in love and then the last time I was the one more in control._

_Both were awful and terrible when they ended. They left me feeling completely empty and I don’t feel that whole ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than to have never really loved at all’ crap. Even though I loved them both, it wasn’t the relationship I wanted. I don’t want to be someone’s puppet or they be mine._

_I want heated arguments about nothing because we’re so passionate about stuff. I want late nights because sleeping isn’t an option when I’m around them. I want a love like Robbers....with less of the thieves and gun wounds._

 

......................................................................................

 

“Passing grammatical mistakes, totally wrecked and polemic in the way he talks......” I sing into the mic, standing on the lip of the stage and bending over to sing more into the crowd.

They cheer loudly and scream when I back away. I've got the mic in one hand and the wine bottle in the other. But it hasn’t gone any further down. When I press the cool glass to my lips, my tongue blocks any liquid from going into my mouth. I don’t want to be drunk tonight. I don’t like reading while drunk.

But people....they paid for this. They paid to see me drink on stage and be Matty Healy. So I’m going to give it to them. They want this, this is what they get. They’re getting what they paid for and I shan’t disappoint them.

I ‘drink’ again. And again. And again. But the bottle never empties and my vision never blurs. We all get what we want tonight.

 

....................................................................................

 

_I want to find love in the city for a night. I’ve never done that before. I don’t live in the city or really that close to it, but I want to do it. I want get lost in shitty little places with too-loud of music and weird smelling people._

_I want to get lost under streetlights and blend in with everyone else. I don’t want anyone to recognize me. I don’t want to be me, anymore. I don’t want this life anymore. I’m just...I’m stuck._

_I’m stuck in this place._

_John Green talked about paper people in paper towns with paper lives in paper houses, but they’re not even paper anymore. They’re just ash. Just....ash..._

_And the wind will blow them all away one day and no one will even notice or remember their paper lives because paper doesn’t leave a dent in this world and neither does ash._

  


Those are my thoughts. Those are my words. Why are they on these pages? Why are they not being written by me? Why does The Writer understand me more than....more than anyone right now? How do they know me by opening up themselves like this?

How dare they.

How dare they not even give me a fucking chance to respond or...or anything, really. If they could be so bold as to tell me their whole lives, give me their soul in the form of a long Letter, but not give me a chance to reply to them. To tell them it’s ok, I’m here too.

I feel these things too.

I hate these paper people burned to ashes too.

I hate the patterns of life.

I want to feel something more again.

I get it. I get them. I understand.

I need a chance to tell them that. I need....a way to find them to tell them that I care and that they’re not alone. We can ride this wave of insane mutuality of these dark and lonely inner thoughts together.

Because **_They_** make me warm like alcohol used to. Alcohol is a nice distraction and a way to keep these thoughts from burning me up. I’m just a paper person waiting to be burned up and turned into ash.....

Gem used to scream at me 'how can I love you if you won't let me in' and I used to laugh and laugh. Not because it was funny, well, I guess it was. It's funny cause she thought I knew the answer to that, that I willingly chose to shut her out.

I wanted to fall in love with her as much as she wanted me to let her in.

Neither of us got our way.

And that is why we broke up.

I glance back down at The Letter, reading the last words on the page. My eyes scan over it and then find where they signed off, a little picture of a bug is all that I’ve got for their signature. It’s poorly drawn in pen with wobbly lines and overlapping legs. My fingers trace it, feeling where the paper just slightly dips in from the pen being pressed down in there.

An ache in my chest starts. It’s been there for a while now but it’s starting to become noticeable again. It’s an ache for something....last time I got this ache, it was an ache for something to tip the scales. Now it’s an ache for someone who spends their days writing heartbreaking but lovely letters to grown men.

It’s an ache for writer to meet writer.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you notice, there’s something that Matty says that may or may not actually have been him in real life. And if you’re on twitter, you’ll be reading some familiar lines too ;)  
> And also some True Romance bits....Ok. It's going to be pretty obvious where my inspiration came from this time around.  
> Enjoy :)

“Your turn, Ross!” The runner laughs, lounging with them in the green room in the back as they wait around for the performance.

Ross laughs a bit and nods. “I don’t mind seeing their tits, honestly,” he admits and everyone screams as if it’s brand new information.

“What about the underage ones?”

“Ew. Gross. Way to ruin the mental image, mate,” Ross complains at Adam.

“I’m just saying!”

“The underage ones are usually with their mums and their mums won’t let them show their tits so I’m sure you’re fine and not a bloody pedo,” George laughs.

“What about you, Matty? You like the attention the girls give you? Seems to me that they’ve got their panties down already by the time they even get close to you.”

“A panty magnet, that one,” the tallest of them chuckles in reply to the runner.

I shrug and sip at the water bottle. “I haven’t done that in a while.”

“Oh what a saint.”

“Spare me your sarcasm, George.”

“It’s a simple question, mate. Do you like the attention the girls give you or not?”

“I mean...I see these girls coming to the shows and they are really quite gorgeous and they have the whole black getup on and they’re proclaiming their love for me with this empty look in their eyes and the terrifying thing is that I can’t tell if I’m killing them or saving them”

“What the fuck are you going on about? Killing or saving them? They want you to blow your load in their mouths not fucking-not fucking recite bible lyrics to them,” George laughs, shaking his head.

“I’m just--

“Ah, whatever. Just taking the piss out of you.”

I nod, and for the first time in a long time, I stay silent.

When everyone leaves, George is the only one to stay behind with me and I know why.

“What’s going on with you?” He asks me quietly.

“What? You’re not trying to take the piss out of me again? Fucking mock every little thing I say?”

He sighs. “I didn’t mean any harm, just having a bit of fun.”

“Bit of fun at my expense.”

“You can dish it but you can’t take it, huh?”

“The fuck you talking about? I didn’t say shit.”

“Not today, but usually you’re fine with a bit of banter.”  
“That wasn’t banter, George. That was an attack.”

He sighs and sits up more. “Not everyone is trying to attack you, quit being so fucking defensive about everything, Jesus.”

I sigh and shake my head. These fucking shows are cutting into my reading time and I keep falling asleep late and waking up early and fuck. I need rest.

“Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. You’re right. Just...feeling a bit sensitive, that’s all. Need a break,” I reply.

“A break? We just started up again.”

“Maybe I’m just tired of all of this.”

George stares at me for a long time, looking me over and inspecting me as if I’m something odd.

“Did you have a lover’s quarrel?” He asks suddenly.

“With fucking who?”

“‘Dunno, Gemma, perhaps?”

“Gemma? Haven’t even talked to her in....ages, man.”

“Everyone thinks you’ve been seeing someone,” George admits quietly. “They thought it was Gemma....I suspect it’s someone new. Keeping her from us, are you?”

I sigh and smile a bit. “‘S’not like that. Not seeing anyone, really. I’m--I’ve just kind of been...I don’t know. I’m alright, mate.”

And then his face gets serious. “Are you--” He stops himself from finishing.

“Am I what? “

“Nothing...don’t worry about it. You--you’d tell me if something was going on, yeah?”

“Course,” I lie.

“Alright.”

“Alright.”

There’s a tense silence after that. I don’t get why I can’t just tell him. I suppose it’d be a bit odd to explain. ‘Oh, no, George, I’m not seeing anyone. I’m just really invested in this Letter and I’m trying to find the person who wrote it because they understand me like no other, but I swear I’m not mentally ill or anything.’

That’d go just fine, I bet.

 

 _ **Don’t get famous,**_ I tweet.

 

“You guys are up in a second,” the runner says in her American accent--always find them kind of odd--and I’m up and out without another word to George.

It’s halfway through our soundcheck when I just **have** to take off the jacket I’m wearing, placing it on one of the speakers on the side. I pat it down to make sure The Letter is still tucked away safely before going back to finish soundcheck, nit picking at a few things.

When they’re all thoroughly annoyed, Ross decides it’s time to annoy me and drags me outside to sign autographs.

I smile at the girls outside in the line, shivering and finally noticing that I don’t have my jacket. Fuck. I run back to the bus and reach for it where I last remember it: on my bed. But it’s not there.

Fuck.

I run out and smile when I see our Runner has it in her hands, she hands it over and I walk inside of the building, not even thinking much about it. My jacket and The Letter are safe. After the soundcheck is over, I put on the hideously fluffy thing and reach inside only for my fingers to grab nothing.

The Letter is gone.

 

...............................................

 

I stalk towards the woman who brought me my jacket. “Where’d you put it?” I ask quickly, cutting her off mid sentence from whatever she was saying to James.

“Where’s what?”

“I had something inside my jacket. It--where’d you put it? Did you take it?” I snap.

I’m so fucking pissed and my hands are shaking a bit.

“I didn’t--I didn’t take anything. Look, I just grabbed it and--

“WHERE IS IT THEN?” I scream and George walks over to me and places a hand on me.

I shrug him off.

“Who FUCKING took my shit? Why do people feel the need to touch shit that isn’t theirs?” I shout angrily.

No one says anything or moves but my Letter still isn’t in my hands and I angrily leave to go back out to the bus and search for it desperately, practically tearing it apart in my desperation. I just need it. I just---it’s my stuff! It’s mine! Where is it?

My whole body is still shaking, feeling overwhelmed with emotions and the need to find it. I have to find it. I--

The door opens and George walks in, looking solemn.

“Get. Out,” I say dangerously.  
“Is this what you were looking for?” He asks.

I glance up to see The Letter in his hands, folded up WRONG. I stand up and reach out to grab it from him, making sure that it’s folded up right. “Where was it?”

“Fell. It was backstage. Runner found it.”  
“Good.”

“Matty, we’re worried about you.”

“You shouldn’t be. I’m fine.”  
He sighs and sits down, I watch him with cautious eyes.

“Are you using again?” He asks and I can see the genuine fear in his eyes. The fear of losing me.

I’m tempted to lie to him, to get that sick pleasure of seeing how much I mean to him. But I don’t. “No.”  
He nods slowly. “Ok.”

I leave him there and head to my room, stuffing The Letter into my top drawer.

 

............................................................................

 

The set goes on like usual, doing everything we rehearsed and I ignore the wine bottles in the back that we always bring. I haven’t been drinking them for the past few shows (maybe more than a few, but who’s counting?). I can feel their energy just burning right through me as I burn right through mine as well.

Thank fuck Fallingforyou is next. I head down to one of the ends of the stage, kneeling down on the lip as I start to sing into the mic, looking out into the crowd. There’s so many faces, so many people.

The Writer could be anyone. Could be that girl in the back, the boy beside of her, could be you. The Writer could be no one, as well. They could be dead or hurt, they could be happy and in love with...with someone else.

I wouldn’t have a fucking clue. I don’t know who they are. They didn’t tell me. All I have are their words, and I know so much about them, but I don’t know their name. I don’t know their face. My eyes scan over the crowd, getting disoriented at the lack of familiarity.

And then big words across the chest of someone hit me: **MOTORCITY**.

 

_I had to come all the way from the highway and byways of Tallahassee, Florida to MotorCity, Detroit to find my true love. If you gave me a million years to ponder, I would never have guessed that true romance and Detroit would ever go together. And til this day, the events that followed all still seems like a distant dream. But the dream was real and was to change our lives forever. I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and things seemed to be getting so shitty. And he'd say......._

 

“I don’t want to be your friend, I want to kiss your neck,” I scream into the mic, interrupting the movie quote, and everything fucking hurts then.  

Everything.

“I think I’m falling....I’m falling...” and I have to let the crowd finish the lyrics.

It’s too much.

Idiot Matty Healy went and fell for someone....someone who might not even exist.

They keep singing and I walk away from them all and head down towards the bar, grabbing one of the wine bottles they’ve got there and everyone watches me and I open it up and I tip my head back, feeling the liquid enter my mouth.

They cheer as I attempt to drown myself in wine. They’re cheering for the relapse of an alcoholic, for the breaking of my heart.  

I’m lost in the midst of all of them, grabbing me and pulling me further into the crowd. I don’t know any of them and I never will.

I’ll never meet The Writer.

“That’s right. Cheer for me. Be happy again. Thrive in the thrills of this poetic misery I suffer!” I shout, getting dragged back on stage by security.

By the time the show is done, I’m barely able to stand on my own and hold a guitar. I definitely stopped singing a couple of songs ago.

George has to help me. This is something I’m familiar with. Finally.

“Matty what the hell is wrong with you?” George screams, dropping me down onto my bed.

I groan and cover my ears as I shout back, “ ...you're a fucking star. You are a fucking star. And you are going to be playing your one-man show for the next two fucking years for a captive audience. And listen to this, you get out in a few years and meet some old lady, get married, and you'll be .......You’ll....”

“You’ll be fucking miserable and alone ‘cause you’ve pushed everyone so fucking far that no one will even fucking care anymore, Matthew!” He screams at me.

“Those aren’t the right words, I was quoting a movie, fucktard,” is my reply.

His face goes red with anger and he’s reaching for some papers on the bed.

“No! Don’t you dare!” I scream and reach for The Letter--MY Letter.

“You want this? This is what’s driving you fucking insane!”

He rips the papers. I scream again and shove him as hard as I can, he staggers back and I punch him.

The rest is a blur, all I remember is Adam and Ross getting involved and me being left in my room alone as I cry over the little pieces of paper. I swear to myself that I’ll never forgive him.

Fuck him.

I go to sleep with those words in my head and I wake up with the paper stuck to me and a massive headache. I try hard to pretend what happened yesterday didn’t happen, but it did. I reach for the little bits and I notice that it’s not handwritten, they’re typed out words. On all of the bits of torn parchment.

The Letter is safely tucked away in my drawer, where I had put it before I got drunk to keep it safe.

Oh God. I groan and close my eyes.

I slugged my best friend because he ripped up some letter about our fucking flat. I feel so fucking embarrassed. I lost control. I don’t even know who that was last night.

The door opens and I busy myself in pretending to sleep again. The bed dips and I open my eyes cause there’s no use in hiding from George. Fucking git. He’s slept in my bed plenty of times, knows when I’m asleep and when I’m faking it.

“You didn’t rip it,” I say softly, opening my eyes but not looking up at him.

“I...I shouldn’t have goaded you,” he replies. “You were out of your mind last night. And--swear, I think crazy is contagious. I felt so helpless, Matty.”

“I did too.”

“I don’t think I even know who you are anymore......”

I don’t respond to that. I don’t even know who I am anymore. I thought I was.....one thing, like I was older and mature and knew what the fuck the world was about. And now I’m punching my mate in a fit of drunken rage over a fucking Letter.

A Letter.

I don’t even know who wrote the damn thing. That thought makes my stomach turn.

“I’m sorry,” George whispers. “I--I didn’t realize those papers meant that much to you.”

“They don’t,” I lie.

“Then why--

“Everything’s alright, ok? I’m ok. Just...lost myself for a bit. I’ll be back to normal. Quit worrying about me, you’re starting to sound like your nan.”

George looks at me, eyes small in confusion, all I can think about is how I told him everything was alright. How I refused to tell him about....that.

I can’t look him in the eye and I pull out my phone to distract myself by tweeting a bit of advice:

 

_**Don’t lie to your friends.** _

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My bad....for the wait. All mistakes are my own.  
> Enjoy :)

 

 

“Addicts are all **liars** ,” I slur, bottle of wine swinging around as I talk. “They’re...they’re all--George? George, you listenin’, mate?”

“Yeah. I heard. Addicts are liars,” George replies.

“They’re liars. And fucking writers? They’re liars too. They--they ain’t got no purpose here. Why’re they here? Tell me. They’re here to make people miserable with their pitiful words and sad analogies, all these references to their sad, pathetic lives woven so seamlessly with their words. They drive me mad, mate. Why can’t they be honest? Just say what they have to without putting a bunch’o’ nonsense in between. Don’t need to know what a lightbulb shattering looks like to explain how your heart feels. Don’t need all of that. Just say it hurt and why it hurt. Don’t romanticize fucking pain. Pain isn’t beautiful. It’s ugly. It’s supposed to make people uncomfortable. Stupid John Green’s got it _wrong_.”

“Is this rant really about that stupid book every bird has been raving about?”

“Oi. Oi! Don’t be fucking sexist. A book is a book and I’m not a bird. I read it. It sucked but--but why did he have to die? And why did he write it like that?”

“Write it like what?”

“Ok. I didn’t read the book. The movie was on Netflix but the point is I thought about reading it, alright?”

George _laughs_ at me.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve laughing at me,” I grumble and scowl at him. I hope I look intimidating.

“Sorry, mate. You’re just--so what writer did you read that pissed you off?”

“You’re missing the point.”

“Matty.”

“I haven’t been reading.”

That’s not a lie. I haven't touched any sort of writing willingly. I’ll read emails from my manager or label and that’s it. No twitter or articles and definitely no stupid le....fanmail.

Just stupid movies and music and friends. That’s all I need.

I don’t need to read. I’m famous. Famous people don’t read.

 

...................................................................................................

 

Famous people do stupid interviews and answer stupid questions.

“What do you think is the most important part about love?”

“Love?”  
“Yeah.”

I stop and....and I try really hard not to think about The Letter, but I can’t really help it. “I reckon it’s knowing someone properly. Like knowing all of the nasty bits about them and knowing the nice ones too. It’s not just for a romantic relationship, but for any kind. That’s the most important part.....and maybe not even fully knowing them but wanting to know them and understand them more than you know and understand yourself. Like--like that’s how long distance relationships work. It’s just constant talking and banter and you don’t get to have the little things people take for granted. Like I-I couldn’t just go hold their hand and walk down to the store. Can’t argue what to eat for dinner. Can’t just come over. Can’t buy them a gift and hand it to them cause it’s Wednesday. Can’t--er--can’t have sex. And couples take things like that for granted. Like I can’t just go and give them a hug when they’ve had a bad day. I can’t hold them at night before going to bed. I don’t have that. But I know them. I really do know them and they seem to know me pretty fucking well and they’ve been there for me when I needed them and they understand things that other people don’t and--and-and-

“Is Matty Healy in a long distance relationship?”

“Yes. I mean...no. Not--that’s....that’s not what I mean--

“Who’s the lucky girl?”

I blink a few times at her and then look at George and then back at her. I don’t know. That’s the problem.

I don’t know

I don’t fucking know.

I can barely get through the rest of the interview properly, ranting again and going off topic. I just can’t get myself to focus. Not when I can’t stop thinking about The Writer. Why did I say that? It’s just fanmail. It’s not.....I keep lying to myself in my head until the interview is over and George is pulling me aside when I try to runaway.

“What was that all about?” George asks. “You’ve been a fuckin’ mess and now suddenly you’re dating someone?”

I feel cornered now. There’s only so much lying and keeping it from George that I can do. He’s my best friend. And I feel like all this shit is killing me inside. “I--I--

“Don’t lie to me, Matty.”

“I’m not fucking lying, Jesus Christ, will you just get off my dick?” I shout at him. “I’m not doing anything wrong--not fucking doing drugs or sleeping around! Even if I was it’s none of your goddamn business, George! Will you just back off and leave me alone? Can you do that? Can everyone just leave me the fuck alone!” I scream and then I’m turning around to walk away.

That’s not what I meant to say.

I was going to tell him how hard this is. How lonely I’ve felt recently. What I’ve been close to doing.

They say misery loves company, but I love George too much to drag him down with me. I may be losing a battle inside my head but I won’t lose it to George.

He lets me leave and I retreat to my hotel room, feeling the self pity starting.

 

...................................................................

 

I lay in bed in the hotel room. We’re playing a show tonight and I’m just...I’m not feeling it. I feel like a stranger in my own skin right now. I stare off into nothing, just getting lost in my head.

I won’t read.....fanmail. I won’t. I refuse. There’s no reason to do it. I’m fine without it.

“I sound like a bloody addict,” I laugh out loud, no real humor behind it.

I _am_ an addict.

Addiction runs in my family. It’s in my blood. I’ve been fucked since day one, really. Mum was addicted to things that could ease her mind and dad was addicted to her, worshipped the ground she walked on until the day she stopped walking and collapsed. She stopped being everything he remembered. He stopped loving her.

And then I think he stopped loving us too. Both of them did.

So it makes sense why I would get so bloody attached to that stupid.... _thing_. Because I’m an addict by nature, I was just missing the drug to get addicted to.

I’m pathetic.

A groan of frustration leaves me and I stand up off the bed, grabbing my jacket and heading down towards the cars. We leave for the show. I change as soon as I get there, sitting quietly until it’s time to go on.

My physical body may be on that stage, but my heart isn’t. It’s not stapled to my sleeve so that everyone can watch it struggle--it’s hidden away like it should have been. Like The Letter. It doesn’t stop me from enjoying this, though, from pumping up the crowd and getting them to go crazy with how I perform.

They sing with me, listen to me ramble a bit between songs, watch me dance around and take pictures. They’re great. They’re so alive and full of energy. And they’re here. _They_ exist. I can see them all.

I hear Hann play the first four notes, listening as everyone screams for him. It’s like everything slows down now, I look out into the crowd and just take it all in. This song: _Robbers_ , it’s changed my life. It’s given me things I never thought would happen.

The drums start and I can feel it vibrating off my chest, the guitar riffs flowing endlessly into one another as the drums build. I can hear the other noises, ones that George put together to have more fullness to it, they get louder as well. I feel hazy with all the smoke, a bit drunk with the crowd tonight.

The cigarette stays lit between my fingers and I inhale it deeply before exhaling out all of the smoke and hearing them cheer for something as simple as that. I need the writer to stay out of my head.

They invade all of my waking moments along with The Letter, even now it’s there in the back of my mind. I sing the words into the mic, watching as everyone sings along but not one single person is the writer. I know they’re not.

 

_If you come back to this shitty town, I’ll be the one crying when you play Robbers, holding a hand to my heart with blood on my fingers--covering the hole on my chest._

Signed off with a little bug at the bottom of the page.

 

It’s sad that I’ve memorized it. But I’ve got nothing else at this point. The realization dawns on me. I’m in love with someone I can never have. With someone who barely even exists, who’s only kept alive because I keep them alive.

“And you find out that--that everything’s gone wrong,” I stutter out, voice shaking with emotion. Everything is wrong. I’m just now realizing it. I can’t keep living like this if all I’m really doing is waiting for death. “Now everybody’s DEAD!” I scream and the fans finish the song, I just watch with watery eyes as they shout out the lyrics to me.

“You look soooooo cool!” They keep repeating.

I may look cool, kids, but inside I’m dying. I’m fucking dying.

 

_Your album has brought on a full blown meltdown, with Robbers being at the epicenter of this disaster. You have ruined me. Your music has completely destroyed me._

 

“No,” I whisper, voice hoarse by the screaming. “You have ruined me,” I answer out loud, mouth away from the mic as the kids keep singing the rest of the song for me.

The ghost of The Letter is heavy against my heart. I’ll never find them. I close my eyes and hold the mic lazily, blowing smoke towards the front and hearing the girls go crazy for that.

The song after that is slow and drained. Every moment just takes away a bit more of me and I head to the speaker on the side, singing _fallingforyou_.

People reach up to grab me and I stay just far away enough that they never can. They can’t touch me when I’m here. I’m untouchable. I’m unlovable. I’m everything your mum warned you about and I turned out to be everything I didn’t want to be.

“Don’t you need me? I--I think I’m falling, I’m falling for you,” I sing over the track. It’s a good thing it’s a track cause at this point it’s hard for me to even see straight; I just want to go back on the bus and take out this Letter and read it until every word is engraved into my memory again.

I’ve deprived myself of it for too long. I don’t even feel human anymore. I’m something so much less, something much more pathetic.

My eyes move hazily through the crowd, looking at all of them. I kind of hope to see the one with a hole in their heart. I want to see them bleeding out before me because that’s what I’m doing. We’re the same. We’re both bleeding and dying except everyone gets to watch me suffer and they do nothing about it but praise my artistry. This stopped being about poetry and the arts a long time ago. I need help. I need The Writer.

I’m so drugged up on all that I feel, it’s overwhelming. Everything around me is blurring and the words are taking another meaning to them now, I really do feel like I’m falling now. Just not in love.

Everything is wrong until my eyes look at the wall across the room, landing on something familiar on the wall. It stands out above all of the other clutter on the wall. It’s then, when I’m feeling the urge to jump into the sea of people, to drown in them just to feel something again that I see it. It practically burns my retinas out with how bright I seem to be seeing it.  

Wait...wait where am I? What is this place? I stand up from where I’m sitting and I kind of go into the crowd, hearing the crowd gasping but I need to see this closer.

They pull me back, security and the fans but nothing can stop me right now because there’s a stupid little bug drawn badly on the wall of this place but I would know that stupid little drawing from anywhere. It’s the same exact one that’s in The Letter, the same one they drew on at the end instead of signing their name.. It’s a bug that’s been engraved into my memory and its twin is currently resting back on the tour bus, safely tucked away. It hits me so hard that I lose my breath for a second.

I can't stop staring at the little drawing. It just brings this warmth to me, slowly making all of the awful, horrible things I've been feeling just go away because this—this right here is proof that they exist. They’re alive and breathing just like I am. They stood here once. They existed in this place. They fucking exist.

When I finish out the song, there's a smile on my face and there’s this new burst of energy I didn’t realize I had left in me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Hey, hey, hey. Here’s your chance to help me out! A future character appearing needs a gender and I can’t decide what gender. So go to my tumblr (the-nineteen-seventy-pie.tumblr.com) so you can cast your vote! (Male, female, or non-binary!)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I’ may be releasing the full version of the letter on my tumblr. If I do, it’ll have it’s own little tab and everything. We’ll see. See, I leave little clues of what’s to come in the little letter bits I’ve given but I have a hard time remembering what bits those are so I know you guys do too so that may be what finally pushes me into posting it fully. Mmmmmmm. We’ll see. Thoughts?  
> Uhm. Also thank you to the wonderful humans who left me the nicest asks on my tumblr, you are lovely people and thank you for sticking with this fic. Hope I don’t disappoint. Much love. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

Lewis Carroll had it right: “how strange it is to be anything at all”. It is strange. To exist. To love. To wake up and be able to touch your face. But even stranger that you’ll never even know what your face really looks like.

It’s also strange to be in love with someone who you’ve never met, either. So maybe Carroll didn’t have it completely right. Maybe it’s not strange at all to be anything, maybe it’s strange to see the existences of others; to hold their souls in your hands without ever having spoken a word.

Quote me: how strange it is to love anything at all.

“Mate, that was sick,” George gushes, smiling over at me as we walk off stage for real this time. The encore was pretty sick, I can’t lie.

I could feel their energy and they could feel mine. It was something so beautiful and pure. I smile at him and nod. “Was wicked,” I agree. “My fucking skin is still tingling from all of it.”

“Yeah, mate. Maybe we should get some rest,” he says and I shake my head.

“Nah. M’gonna head outside for a bit.”

He looks over me and nods. “There’s probably people out there waiting for you.”

“Probably,” I agree and I grab a jacket and head outside, lighting up one of my fags and seeing the group of excited girls already waiting for me.

  
  


_It’s funny. I hadn’t written anything for just me in a year. A whole year. A writer who only writes because they asked them to. Isn’t that strange? Sad?_

 

My body hasn’t been right in years--been betraying me recently, slowly giving in to the decay of getting older and being an alcoholic. It’s gotten to the point that my throat gets so shot that every word I speak is a sharp razor I’m vomiting up. And my hands-God- my hands have had this persistent tremble--they're so cold. I'm just fucking so cold, not even dozens of fans or the promise of heat soon is enough to warm me up.

But tonight, tonight is not like any other night. Tonight I felt the buzz of this little town—I don't even know what the fuck it's called.

It's still cold outside, colder than I expected and there's a small group of fans. I expected more. Maybe people started losing hope, it's been so long since I've gone out to meet them. I head around them and onto the bus, grabbing The Letter from its shelter and shoving into a pocket before heading outside again.

They seem excited, maybe even....shocked when I come back.

“Matty!” One of the girls screams as soon as she spots me.

“Sh. Sh. Sh. No need to shout, love,” I say calmly and walk over to them.

They’re buzzing with excitement, their whole bodies matching my hands in the trembling. I wonder what it’s like to meet someone that you claim to love so deeply without really knowing anything about them. I almost envy them for those few moments.

The odd sound of a sniffle turns my attention from the louder ones to the one that’s quieter and subdued. Her eyes are shining and there’s a wet trail down her cheek, disappearing just under her jaw. She’s got a different look in her eye than the others.

I reach out for her and she comes easily, letting me wrap her up in an embrace. I don’t know why she’s crying. Maybe I’m her idol, or she’s overwhelmed cause I’m famous or some bullshit--or I remind her of her demons. Maybe my music’s helped her through them, I’ll never know. I won’t ask. I feel like it’s rude. But she doesn’t say anything and I hold her a bit tighter before I pull away and she smiles up at me.

“Don’t cry, love. You’re too pretty to cry,” I say gently and pat her cheek a bit awkwardly before letting my hand fall down from her face to grab the pen being offered to me to sign something.

“Life’s too short to drink crappy coffee and boy--

“I didn’t even say that, I swear,” I laugh and shake my head. “I don’t even know what that means. Like. Who--tumblr loves making shit up.”

“Yeah it does,” she agrees with a soft laugh.

“What made you come out tonight?” One of the girls asks.

I smile at her a bit and shrug, “just wanted to, I guess,” I reply, handing back one of the things I’ve signed.

“You're different.”

My eyebrows furrow and I look up to see the girl who had been crying, staring at her in confusion.

“I—I saw you perform a few months ago in a different venue, like, hours away. You came out but I was too scared to talk to you. You were different then,” she explains.

I can’t even respond to her for a few seconds, unsure how to, really. “When’d you see me perform?”

“Late November,” she responds.

Is...could it... “you saw me perform in November?”

“Yeah. I was so scared to talk to you, you’ve no idea. But I got my friend to give you the thing I had been dying to give you.”

“What's your name, Love?” I ask her, heart racing now.

“Beatrice. My friends call me Bee for short.”

Bee. Bees are bugs.

“Beatrice is a lovely name, Bee,” I compliment and she laughs. “What did you give me?” Please. Please. God. One chance to prove you’re there, old man. One. Give me the one thing I want.

“Oh, I’ve got a picture of it.”

I nod and lean in and she shows me a lovely picture that she drew of the band. I try not to let it hurt as much. It was a long shot, anyways. Who meets their soulmate at an impromptu meet and greet behind a music venue? God, Healy, you’re becoming stupid.

“Thanks for coming out girls,” I say lightly and wave as I walk off. I take out another fag and light up, walking away and down the road.

What do I even know? What do I know about The Writer? Not their name, or face, or anything.

But I do know it takes thirty-four steps to get from the artsy mural to the post office, they said so. They said they'd counted. Their town is small and picturesque, but like pictures, it never changes--it only ever withers down, refusing ever to be saved. Not even the changing times can change the way they think so they stay judgmental bigots.

And the Writer says that the lady at the library loves purple. She loves it so much, she wears it everyday.

I know they absolutely love and hate this town, hates how it is but loves it cause that's all they know. I know that they love and hate me. Hate me because I get a chance to escape from everything....and they love me. They love me. I can feel it. They don't love me in the way that others have before, where they see me as a broken hero. They love me for what I really am—or they could. They call me out on my shit, they do it all the time in The Letter.

I breathe in the smoke deep into my lungs, holding it there longer than usual before blowing it out. I know I could love them like they want to be loved, like they deserve. I sigh and take another hit from the fag.

But they could be anyone in this world. I don't know what they look like, I don't know if I'll like their nose. Maybe their nose is funny. Maybe they're nothing like I want in person. Maybe they're everything. It makes my heart ache and long for someone I don't know and for a place I'll never find. Maybe they're not even real.

  
  


_La poesie est dans la rue. Poetry is in the street. Sometimes I think to myself how powerful that statement is and I always go back to that mural, knowing I can’t do that. But....but I do other things. I write. Poetry is in the street and not just in the mural......_

  
  


That thought has me leaning against a building and smoking silently for a few minutes. I stomp out the rest of the cigarette and lean away from the building, looking back at it. Post office. A small post office in a little picturesque town.

I smile a bit, and to humor myself I turn around to look at where I was walking. No mural. Of course there wouldn't be one. I didn’t even get my hopes up for that one.

But then I turn my head to look in front of me again to smoke. The wind picks up and nips at my skin, drying out my lips to the point of pain. I reach into my pocket to grab the little chapstick when the top page of The Letter falls from my pocket and flies away in the angry wind.

“Stupid thing,” I grumble and run across the road and my chapstick follows suit, falling from my pocket and rolling under a dumpster. “You are not that important. I am not getting under there to get you. Freeze,” I tell it angrily before turning my attention to the lonely piece of paper, going over to pick it up gingerly. It’s when I’m standing back up again that I see it.

It knocks my breath away for a second cause right here in front of me is a giant mural on the side of the building, right across the post office.

About thirty four small steps to get to this spot if I counted. Which I do. Going back and forth several times to make sure.

Thirty four.

  
  
  
  


_I think your music has helped me see that--helped me realize how much writing can affect someone. Yours has affected me so deeply, but I thank you for that because you’ve ignited this spark in me again, rekindled the dwindled and struggling little flame._

_See I thought it had been lost forever, just like the mural’s artist is lost forever. They painted that mural in the middle of the night, feeling just as trapped and lonely as I was.Takes exactly 34 steps to get to it. I know. I’ve counted more times than I’d like to admit. It’s comforting to know someone in this world feels the same way about you._

_Imagine stumbling upon it one day, this giant tree mural on the side of this building with shaky writing on top of it that just reads “I climbed the tree to see the world” and if you can fucking scale a building, I suggest doing it. I do it all the time. Well this building, to be exact._

_I like to stand exactly where this artist stood, staring out at the little town that has drained and taken a lot from me. I stand here and I pretend I’m brave enough to just let go and jump. I don’t mean that literally--well. Maybe I do. But not right now-- maybe not off the building, but jump into the unknown. To leave and start over. To finally be free._

_See I like to pretend I’m the artist with nothing left to lose except my mind._

  
  
  


I get to it, after recounting the fifth time, and my eyes widen, breath picking up as I stare at the massive artwork on the building. It’s a large tree. Actually large isn’t the correct word, it’s not enough. The tree covers practically the whole side of the building, with the words written off to the side.

The writer has been here. They’ve been here loads of times, climbed this same fucking tree.

My hands shake as I try to get a grip, noticing that there’s a simple way to get up there. It’s almost as if it was purposefully made to be able to be climbed. So I climb all the way to the top and notice that a bit of the leaves and stuff go up to the ledge and end in a semi-circle, looking vaguely like an open spot for a seat on the ledge, as if you’re sitting at the top of the tree.

I take the spot and look out and, yeah. Here it is. There’s the whole little town right below me, sleeping silently and so unaware of anything. My Writer must be out there too.

My teeth chatter in the cold and I hold on desperately to the ledge. It’s so dark out there, so quiet--so different than what I’m used to. The noise in London or on tour is deafening, suffocating. Here, the silence is haunting but calming. I see why the Writer would love this place.

“I climbed it. Like you said I should. I fucking did it,” I whisper. “I did it.”

I did it like the others have before me. First the artist, then the writer, now finally the musician.  So similar, yet so different. It’s almost like looking through a looking glass.

Every little thought that I’ve had comes pouring back in as I sit here, of all of the similarities me and The Writer share, the unspoken words shared between us, their soul that I keep tucked away at all times--hidden from everyone because it’s mine to guard and keep safe. I’ve felt crazy. I’ve felt so fucking alone. But here, here is where we’ve all come and shared the same experience. We’re all one in the same; we’re just sad, lonely people looking for love.

 

 

_.....I held on to his fingertips, and he mine. Desperate to not let go and lose each other. We held on until the very last second, until my eyes finally found his again. That’s when I knew what this was, and the truth shot me straight through the chest: I couldn’t love him--I couldn’t fall in love with him._

_And oblivion seems a lot nicer when you’re riding in the back of a van with friends, even if you’re still bleeding out from the gunshot wound. It’s a beautiful way to go, though. Surrounded by those you love. Even if I’m hurt and dying slowly, I get to have all of them._

_But that’s what Robbers is. That’s what your music is. It’s a declaration of love, it’s growing up with friends you can’t imagine life without, it’s a juxtaposition to the archaic views of growing up. It’s fucking up. It’s knowing the world is a really fucking nasty place that will rip you to shreds and let you die slowly and painfully, but it’s just nice having pretty eyes full of love to stare into as you die._

_It’s not being afraid. Taking what you can get, being with the other person and being with your friends. It’s knowing nothing else on earth really fucking matters. This love isn’t all or nothing._

_It’s all AND nothing. All I’ve got is the love I give and get, but nothing else. This world is a trap and the only escape is love. It’s fucking oblivion, like I’ve been saying all along. Love is oblivion, oblivion is nothing, and nothing is your escape._

_The only way out of this maze is going straight fucking through it, forget the lines, forget the rules. Go straight through and go out with a fucking bang with the people that matter, right? That’s why you don’t care about what people think of your band, or of your music, or of being famous and popular. You didn’t do this for them. You did this for you...._

  
  
  


I don’t know how long I stay up there, honestly. It could’ve been seconds or years, but time was irrelevant then. All that mattered was The Letter. I was sitting where The Letter had been inspired from, it’s origin. Something in me settles with that new knowledge.

The climb back down from the tree to the ground is silent, I’m subdued when I return to the bus and everyone’s been waiting for me, already asking me where I got myself into. I can’t reply to them, I don’t.

My brain is on overdrive, the need to get down what’s in my head onto something tangible is too great to have a petty conversation like that. The Writer needs a response, they need my reply. I need to give it to them.....

But I don’t know how I’d start it--I’ve never been good at beginnings or even middles, but endings I can do. I’ve witnessed and been the cause of so many endings now that it’s second nature, it’s only fitting that I should start my reply with an ending--with my sign off, my salutation: _ **Love, me.**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also. You can follow my tumblr for updates on the fic, hints on what's coming, and my general inspiration on this fic.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been receiving so much love because of this fic, I really can’t thank you enough for all of this support. Your messages are so lovely and they really make my day. Thanks again. I love you all so much.
> 
> Mistakes are my own, darlings. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

 

 

 

 

_I long for those things for which I do not have and do not know if I will ever be able to have them._   
  


Me too, me fucking too, darling.

 

…....................

 

After the discovery, the performances just seem to blur together. None of them stick out in the mess of disjointed memories in my head. There’s just large crowds and bright lights. It’s all the fucking same. Night after night, same songs, same everything.

But that’s not what I look forward to. I end up _like_ going out to meet the fans. Kind of like how I used to before we blew up and everything turned to shit. More and more people stay after so I struggle to keep up with them all. They stay to catch a glimpse of us, get a picture so they can brag about it. But I don’t want that. I tell them that.

I don’t want something so impersonal and detached, I want to talk to them. I want to see their eyes light up and their souls bared to me, not see the flash of a camera go off as silence fills up our ears.

But I keep coming back. I stay. I stay night after night to chat away, bloody exhausted but feeling like I have a duty to them anyways. And maybe, just maybe, another letter will be given to me. It’s wishful thinking that I don’t hold my breath for.

  


_The great wonders of the world aren’t places or things, I’ve realized. It’s the people we meet. The people whose very existence has changed ours._

_I’ve already talked about my time theory with Dr. Who, but this goes with it. I think every person you meet, you’re meant to meet. Imagine all of the things life had to go through, every decision, every obstacle--even a fraction of a difference could’ve changed it all. But yet, they managed to meet you. You’ve managed to get to know them and for that second, your fans feel whole and connected to._

_It all makes sense for that little moment._

_Every moment has a purpose, every person has a lesson, Matty._

 

And every Letter has a Writer, which I plan on finding.

 

...............................................

We get a break exactly two and a half weeks later and I'm on my computer in my flat in London. George is packing up to go visit his own family.

“You enjoy home, don’t bother me with no stupid couple selfies of you and Jess,” I say lightly as I stare at the one sentenced page on my screen.

“Jess?” George questions, stopping in his trek from his room with his bags. “Me and Jessie aren’t together anymore, Matty.”

“What?” I ask and look up from my laptop finally. “When did that happen? Why didn’t you tell me sooner, you tosser?”

“Well, I didn’t think you cared to know. You’ve got more important things to deal with, yeah?” He replies bitterly before setting down his luggage.

“Alright, alright. I know I haven’t been the best of fr--

“The best? You’ve been damn near non-existent. Quite frankly, I think this is the most conversation we’ve had in ages.”

I look down at the nearly-empty word document, staring at the letters on the screen at the bottom. Well, fuck.

“Wow, good talk, Matty. So glad we were able to resolve our friendship issues before I left and you had a reason to ignore us all,” George gripes.

“Christ, would you just give me a moment to think about a reply, George.”  
He nods and tenses his jaw, “alright. Think about a reply and email it to me, yeah? Or better yet, send me a fucking letter. I’ll reply and maybe then you’ll actually give a fuck again.”  
“Low blow, George.”

“Is it really? I wouldn’t know.”

“George.”

“Enjoy your holiday, Matty,” he says as he grabs his bags in his large hands and takes them outside.

I should follow him. Be like a scorned lover and follow him outside and to his car, screaming his name and demanding him to come back and finish this. But--but I don’t. I don’t move. My pride is too heavy, it weighs down all of my limbs and my heart. I hear the car pull away and the pride makes me turn off my phone so my heart doesn’t do something stupid like have me call George and apologize. God forbid I be a slightly less shitty person.

  


.....................................................

 

“Dear The Writer--no. No. That’s stupid. Remove the ‘the’,” I grumble to myself as I type away on the laptop.

I have so many things I want to say but can’t. I look down at the papers beside of me, curled in at the edges and fanned out across the bed. George has been gone for hours now. Not that I’m counting. I just happen to know.

The flat is so silent now I can actually hear the ticking of the clock in the living room--some old grandfather one George found at some consignment shop. The only sounds that give away that someone’s there are the soft, delicate sounds of me angrily slamming the backspace key again and again.

“Bloody hell, I’m never gonna get this right,” I murmur to myself.

The clock ticks again and finally shatters my patience with silence and being holed up here. I can’t do it. Not for two weeks. I’ll go mad.

My feet lead me towards the kitchen, intent on getting something hard to drink to help numb it when I see it. The stupid piece of paper that George drew on during one of our earlier interviews. He kept it. A stupid little thing that says _OTG_ on it.

“Off the grid.”

And I remember what that had felt like, losing my phone and unable to communicate with anyone impersonally, being forced to call them or talk to them in person before I could get my phone shipped back to me from the airport.

How would it feel like now that no one would care to call me? I’ve pushed everyone so fucking far away that I’m already OTG without even being gone.

Gone.

I want to be gone. I want to not feel the weight of guilt with being in the flat I share with my best friend I keep letting down. I want to feel like I’m doing something, like I’m going in the right direction--in any fucking direction, cause lately it seems like I’ve been going nowhere.

I want to find the fucking writer. That’s what I want most of all.

My eyes scan over the paper once more, looking intently at it before I make up my mind and head back into my room, grabbing my phone to call someone.

“Hello? Yes. I’d like to book a flight please.”

...........................................

 

My flight leaves in the middle of the night to the little sleepy town where my writer is from. Allegedly. So far. All the clues point to there, really.

I don’t tell anyone where I’m going and it’s in the middle of the ride, listening to music when my phone flashes that it’s dying and I realize I don’t have the charger for it. I don’t intend to buy a new one either. It dies slowly and I feel nothing but relief at finally being completely cut off from everyone.

I have things to do. I can’t have distractions. And I should be sleeping, getting some rest in before I land because I still have to take a rental car down to the town.

 

_I think I know why I'm afraid of flying, it's not particularly the flying that I'm afraid of. No. I'm afraid of the letting go. Not Of thinking I'm alright and floating into the clouds with no worries. No. I'm afraid of letting go of that fear only to be reminded why it exists. I'm afraid of the inevitable: that everything that goes up, must come down._   


 

It takes me until the early morning before I finally reach my destination and my eyes are bloodshot and I’m shaking and twitching from the shots of espresso I had from a questionable gas station I stopped at. The directions I’m following, scrawled out on a napkin I also took from said gas station, lead me straight to an old, large house.

Someone booked me a room before I came here and I park on the side as I check in ridiculously early. It’s not even a proper hotel, it’s like a house. Is this a bed and breakfast? How do those even work anyways?

Doesn’t matter.

I need sleep. And a cigarette. Or George.

The old woman, named Mrs. Susan, is chatty and nosey, she questions me on why I’m here since they, apparently, usually never get any visitors apart from writers wanting to get away and lock themselves up for a few months at a time.

“The last time we had an author come and he spent a whole year here. His book is up at the library, autographed and everything. Are you a writer too?”

“Sort of.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Kind of,” I reply.

“Well, why are you here?” She asks bluntly when subtlety doesn’t seem to work for her. I smirk. I can respect that kind of bluntness.

“Just needed to get away for a bit. Clear my head. Go off the grid for a while.”

“Oh. Oh, deary.  This town isn’t like it used to be. Not much to do around here, anymore, except the occasional concert. But the biggest one just passed, you just missed them.”

“Yeah? Who was it?”

“Some rock and roll band the young ones like here. Some year or something. 1987 or something like that. I can’t remember. Are you familiar with them?” She asks and smiles when I nod. “You a fan of theirs?”

“Nah. Their lead singer is too pretentious,” I reply and chuckle.

She laughs a bit before finally leading me upstairs, chatting away about random things she has and some history about the house that I kind of ignore. But I’m polite and nod my head as she leads the way to a room on the second floor all the way in the back.

“Usually this is our special room, but since you’re the only one here, I’ll let you stay here,” she whispers like it’s a big secret.

“Thank you. You’re the kindest woman I’ve ever met,” I say and she smiles at me, looking proper flattered.

“Here you go. Three weeks, yeah? In three weeks you find me and give these back and I’ll check you out. And if you want to extend your visit, just let me know and I can work with you,” she says before handing over the keys with a big fluffy bear chained to them.

I go inside and lock the door behind me, getting my bag and setting it down on the bed. I have three weeks. Three weeks of searching for the writer and getting as close to them as I can get. Maybe just find more writings of theirs or a name, maybe a confirmation that they existed at one point or another. Just anything. I’m desperate at this point.

But I don’t even know where to start. This might not even be the right place. I kind of....it might just be wishful thinking that they’re here. What’re the chances that this is the right place? Maybe the mural was a coincidence. Maybe it was all just a crazy fucking coincidence.

My mind races and I’m forced to reach for The Letter in my bag and scan it through, searching for the clues of where they may be.

 

_The mural._

_Judgemental purple wearing librarian._

_Weird tree._

_Movie rental place._

 

None of this is specific enough. I sigh. “Come on, babe, give me something,” I murmur to myself as I keep scanning the letter.

My lips quirk up in a soft smile as I reread the familiar words and I feel over them again as I have dozens of times. They don’t know how much I can relate to this. They’ve done something to me and I don’t think I could ever go back to how I was before them even if this trip was for nothing. Even if I never find them, I have a bit of their soul right here. And I love them.

My hands fold up the letter again and I tuck it in and stand off the bed. If I’m going to the find them, it won’t be in here. I’ve got to do something, I’ve got to search. I can do this. I’ll find them.

 

_There’s this little museum thing. It’s not filled with anything spectacular, just local artists, but there’s like....there’s something about being in there. Something about just looking at all of that art and sometimes I feel so..so emotional. There’s this one, it’s my favorite.  ‘Death of an Artist’ and yeah. Something about it always breaks my heart. the artist never picked up another paint brush again. It was after her lover died. I guess he was her muse. Her art died because  the one person she wanted to see it wasn’t around anymore. She just gave it all up. Like I said, it breaks my heart, but it’s my favorite because her love and devotion to her lover was so strong, she couldn’t bare to be the person that she was with him. Kind of like if robbers had a different ending. If he or she wouldn’t have made it, the other wouldn’t have even tried, probably._

 

My first day in the town, I spend it pouring through The Letter, trying to find more specific details of the town. I want to retrace their steps.

 

_As much as I hate this town, I don’t hate everything of it. It’s taken a lot from me but it’s shaped me to be such a different person. Though, wifi everywhere here sucks so downloading and Netflix are practically impossible. Could be why the movie rental place is such a hot spot for us still..._

 

...................................................

 

I wake up the next morning to a light knocking on the door and paper plastered to my face. I groan as I slowly sit up. I must’ve fallen asleep while researching.

The knocking gets louder and I huff. “I’m going!” I call out as I stand up and walk to the door only half awake, running into one of the side tables as I do. “Fucking hell!” I curse and answer the door, holding my knee.

“Oh. Good morning, Matthew!” Mrs. Susan says far too cheerfully this early in the morning.

“Morning.”

“Breakfast is ready,” she says before turning around and walking away without another word.

I close the door and get proper clothes on before heading downstairs with her. I’m not sure how bed&breakfasts work. Is it really just a bed and breakfast? I may never know.

“Mrs. Susan,” I start out, taking another slice of bacon and eating it, “I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“Where’s a good place to get lunch?”

There’s apparently three really good family-owned restaurants. All of them within walking distance of each other. And located on the strip, just three buildings away from their movie rental place.

I make my way down to the strip, going around to explore some of the places around. I don’t come across anything familiar or from The Letter. But I stay hopeful.

The movie rental place is my first stop. I sigh as I move through the aisles of the movie store, I haven’t actually rented anything in person in a long time. Why would I with all this new technology and instant downloads? But here’s something about browsing and looking for a movie and being able to pick it up. Like actually reading a book instead of on the internet. Or reading a handwritten letter. I smile to myself at the thought and continue through the movies until I see the sign for the adult section.

Seriously? I snort and head inside, smirking a bit as I go in. There’s a few people in here and I just want to laugh. The internet is a more anonymous way of wanking off to naked women. Or men. I don’t judge.

I end up picking up a movie from the not-adult section and I go explore some more. The hope and the freshness of the town keeps me going as I build a sort-of routine pretty quickly there. It takes me four days before people know to expect me where and that’s--that’s odd. I’m not used to that. Not where I’m from.

They know I have breakfast with Mrs. S so they never offer me breakfast when I go get dinner, and the guy working at the movie place knows I go there every day to exchange the movie for a new one.

  


But after five days I start itching to find new connections with the town and The Letter.

But nothing comes up. The Mural and the stupid bug are the only thing there connecting The Letter and the writer to this place, and another day's’ defeat has me walking down to the gas station and buying liquor. I promise myself it’ll only be one bottle. I’ve never been good at keeping promises, though.  

The alcohol usually helps numb everything, helps me keep going and work. Usually I need it to get through a particularly rough performance and then I get to knock out afterwards and nurse the hangover the next day with more alcohol. But as I drink now, alone in my room, I just--it doesn’t numb me.

It makes my body heavy, the weight reminds me of the guilt, and the guilt leads me back to George. The way his eyes looked so disappointed and hurt. Like--why did I do that? Why did I hurt him? He’s my best mate.

I drink to that.

All he’s ever done is be there for me. What do I do? I lie to him. I keep things from him, I can’t even tell him where I am and why I’m here. I wasn’t even there for him for the break up. I don’t know how it happened or who ended it.

Jessie and George were real--are real. My parents were real. I’m real.

There's so much racing in my mind and the booze doesn’t help, it sinks me further into the depths of my mind. It brings up the thoughts that I keep buried down. It drags me down and has doubt completely surround me.

Maybe I’m just fucking this all up. Maybe this was a mistake.

But it fucking _can’t_ be. Someone once said that a mistake is when you don’t try and I’m fucking trying.

They're real. They're here. This letter belongs to someone and they're here but I don't know who they are.

I take another swig of the bottle.

**I’m** fucking here. For them. For the writer because of this Letter. I'm here because I could be their fucking robber. I could be they're escape. I fucking volunteer as tribute!

I stand in the middle of my room and take a few deep breaths. I look around and then I throw the bottle of wine as hard as I can. It shatters and it’s like it’s New Year’s all over. I’m alone in a room with no one else around me--no one to care. I scream and collapse to the floor.

"I’M FUCKING HERE!" I shout. "I'M RIGHT HERE," I cry out and then just cry, burying my fingers in my hair and putting my head to the floor. "I'M right here," I whimper.

I'm here and I'm so fucking alone. I just want them, whoever they are. That's all I want. Why is that so hard?

Why can't I find them? Give me My bug.

It just gets to be too much and my skin burns and my throat is sore, I stand up and head to the bathroom. Everything feels different. I feel--numb. Not the good kind either. Not the kind that stops sadness, the kind that stops everything. Even happiness. There’s just nothing. You’re a walking black hole, eating up the light of the world around you and warping it into something dark and twisted.

I sit on the edge of the tub and turn on the water, just getting into it with my clothes on and stuff. I can think clearly now that I don’t have emotions driving me. It all makes sense now: Your heart never stops beating. That bastard will keep going no matter how much you want it to stop:  
but with breathing you have a choice--the thing that keeps the bastard going. And if you cut off the power supply you kill the bastard. Simple.

I slip under the water.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get out, I was in a car accident and it messed up my plans with posting this. But, as promised, the new chapter.
> 
> Enjoy :)

 

 

There are a lot of things wrong in my life. Things that have lead up to this moment. Maybe my whole life has just been leading up to this moment. I always liked surprising people, I wonder if more people will be surprised I’ve done it, or more surprised it took me this long to do it.

I release air from my lungs, watching the bubbles float out of my mouth. I imagine that those little bubbles are pieces of me, lost little pieces that I’ll never get back--that I don’t want back. Or maybe they’re my soul. Don’t think it matters either way anymore, honestly.

I wonder if John Green wrote something like this. Probably not. Suicide is ugly, can’t romanticize that. Can’t make such an ugly thing beautiful, no matter how hard you try.

Or maybe it is. Maybe it’s supposed to be something fucking pretty. I mean, I get to fucking  _ choose  _ how I go, when I go. Fuck. I get to be God. I get to decide. I have my own fucking fate. I decide it for myself. I’m Frank fucking Sinatra, mate, I’m doing it my way.

I open my mouth for air and swallow in the water, making a small noise of protest, feeling the desperate need for ai--No. No. This isn’t what I’m going to think of when I die. I’m going to die a pompous twat.

La Poesie la dans la rue. Poetry is in the street. It’s all around us. Poetry is one of art’s most biased, untruthful, but raw type of art. It bears the soul of one and twists around the truth until the words you read are only the product of a biased mind with only one thing left: write what hurts. Not write the truth.

And readers don’t want the truth; we want what we want to read.

I wanted to be loved. I wanted to be cared for and understood. I wanted art to enrich me with the beauty it promised me when I was a young lad. I wanted what was promised. I wanted to be happy. 

I just...I just wanted to be fucking happy. I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t keep my best mates, couldn’t get the girl. I couldn’t be the person I always wanted to fucking be. I don’t know who I am anymore. I fucking lied to my best mate and pushed him away, for what? For a fucking Letter? For a writer that doesn’t exist--that can’t exist? I did this all for nothing. I am nothing.

I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be born, and neither did my mother, really. She didn’t want me. That’s why she tried throwing herself from a fucking building. I don’t want me. That’s why I’m in here, swallowing dirty bathwater as I struggle to keep breathing.

I choke under the water a bit, releasing air only to swallow in the dirty bathtub water. They say it’s peaceful when you drown, just like falling asleep. Too bad they lied.

I start to properly choke, coughing and fighting against the water, swallowing more down. That’s when the fear kicks in, that’s when I realize something I had been fighting against all along: I don’t want to fucking die.

My eyes snap open and I sit up in the water, gagging and spitting up the water. My hands shake and I struggle to climb out of the tub, crawling out of the bathroom and grabbing my phone from the bed. 

I’m still gasping for air, struggling to breathe and trembling so hard I can barely even click on what I need to on my phone. It rings and rings and I wait for George to answer but he never does.

“George,” I choke out. “Please, mate. Listen to me. I’m--I’m fucking sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve been keeping shit from you and pushing you away. And--listen, man. Misery loves company but I love you more than that and I didn’t wanna drag you down into my shit.’

“It’s not drugs. Fuck. I wish it was. At least it’d make more fucking sense then this crap. It’s that fucking Letter, mate. It’s--it’s like driving me insane. I had to leave to find them--I had to. I’m--I’m here in this little town just trying to find them and I couldn’t and it doesn’t make sense anymore. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.’

“George, please. Please. Listen to me. I’m--I just tried to drown myself.  _ Me.  _ I tried to kill myself cause everything--everything right now is fucking wrong. It’s all fucking wrong. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’--mate I don’t want this anymore. I--I have to cancel the rest of the tour, I can’t go on like this. I can’t fucking think straight. My head’s gone, mate. I’m fucking gone. I think I’ve gone mad. I just--I need you to forgive me. You’re my best friend and I’m a piece of shit but you’re all that I have and I’m sorry for being such a shitty friend. I’m so sorry,” I cry into the phone, pulling it away from my face.

The screen shines bright when I look down at it, finding it to be flashing a called dropped. My body unwinds and relaxes down against the bed in defeat, my spilled guts still falling from me slowly, only now I don't have my safety net. I don't have the person who always puts me back together. I'm so alone. It's like it's New Years again except this time The Letter can't help me either. Nothing can.

I make a face down at my phone, eyes squinting as I struggle to read what I'm typing out through the blurred, wet vision. 

It’s just one email I need to send to my manager. Just one.

_ ‘I can’t continue the tour. I’m sorry.’ _

And just like that, in two simple sentences, it’s over. No fancy wording, no  _ jokes on you  _ shit. It's fucking over until I say it isn’t. But it’s over. Done. No more tours. No more false hope. No more potential writers. It’s finished.

And the 1975 might be too. 

 

Frankie Avalon said that I’d find love at the bottom of the sea. I claimed I’d find it in the city. Guess we were both wrong ‘cos I didn’t find shit. 

 

.............................................

  
  


There’s a loud pounding at the door. It’s a little bit desperate, a little annoying. But it stops as soon as the door opens and my fist drops from the wood as I stare at Mrs. Susan’s face, hair up in rollers like in the old movies. She looks me up and down, taking in my sopping wet appearance with shock and confusion.

“Hi, Mrs. Susan, do you have any extra towels? I don’t have anymore towels,” I say, shivering and dripping onto the floor before her.

“I--yeah, let me go get you some,” she says and hurries back into her room and I stand there and tremble from the cold. 

She comes back after a few moments with a few folded towels and hands them over. “You alright?” She asks.

“I’m--I’ll be ok,” I admit and I take the towels from her. “Thank you. Sorry about the mess. And about waking you up.”

I turn and walk away without another word or waiting for her to talk. 

.................................................

 

There’s a giant mess that greets me the next morning. Glass pieces all down the floor and some stuck inside the wall. The sticky spill around that same area sticks to the bottom of my bare feet as I make my way to the slightly flooded bathroom. And, of course, there’s the biggest mess of all; one that I’m not sure I can fix: me.

I pick up the glass carefully, placing it into a bag and then throwing that one out before I move to wipe up all of the dried up booze. It’s a process to clean everything up, but I manage. The bathroom is the worst one, having to clean up the floor that’s under water. 

When it’s all done, I get back into the bed, hiding under the covers. Mrs. S knocks on the door a few times, announcing that breakfast is ready. Our ritual. 

“I’m not hungry,” I reply to her, I'm depressed not fucking rude.

“Alright, dear, I’ll leave it out for you!”

I don't reply and she doesn’t bother me again. I stay in bed and refuse to move. It’s like that for the next few days, she tries to get me to eat but all I accept from her are drinks and that’s it. I don’t bathe or shave or eat. Just....lay there in silence, wallowing in self loathing.

This is what depression looks like. Not like those glamorized fantasies people post all over the fucking internet. It’s not having a smoke on a fucking roof and writing sad poetry. It’s not screaming your lungs out on a cliff. It’s not pretty. It’s ugly. It’s not supposed to be fucking pretty.

It’s not being able to move from the bed, not caring about the smell or the mess or the hunger. Everything is too much and not being able to deal with it. It’s feeling numb to the point that you want to slowly fade into nothing.

It’s not even having the strength to do the things you know would pull you from this. I’m drowning, again, and I’m scared I won’t be able to sit up from the water this time. I’m too far in the depths of my mind for that. I think I’m lost for good.

Where is my mind?

.........................................................

  
When you spend enough time in your head, you realize how dark and how scary of a place it is. It connects you to people and it can also keep you from people. It can make you sane or insane. I think I'm at the border of the two, flirting with the line that separates it. See, in the state of mind I'm in, I think I get how the world works. I think I understand everything.

Reality is a tangible thing. It means it’s been proven it exists, it’s tangible by either sight or smell or touch or science. Its juxtaposition is something that can’t exist.

But if it’s been created, even in the mind, doesn’t that mean it’s alive in someway? Doesn’t that make it tangible? Doesn’t that mean that just because other’s can’t see it, but you can even in your brain, doesn’t that make everything real?  
And--and the juxtaposition to that is that if you stop believing, stop giving power to something, it makes it imaginary. If I hide long enough, people will forget me and I’ll slowly rot in this room. But only if I forget myself too. I can’t think of me anymore. 

To disappear I have to be nothing. 

I am nothing.

The thought has me smiling without feeling anything, really. I sit on the floor, leaning against the bed as I stare out into nothing. There’s this giant hole head, but I’m too scared to look at the mirror to check.

I think my brain’s run out on me again, just gone and left just like it's always had before. I wonder where it’s gone to hide this time. 

 

.......................................

 

I wake up when a loud crash startles me awake. My eyes snap open and I look around, sleep heavy and disoriented. Sunlight pours into my room for the first time in days, I sit up slowly and glare at it. The curtain thing just fell right off. 

My body moves of its own accord, limbs feeling like lead as I move to put it up again but it’s been broken clean off. I sigh and I move to go to the bathroom. I need a new curtain rod. Damnit. I shower slowly, cleaning off days’ worth of grime off my body before I get out and change into fresh clothes. I feel...clean. Not quite as heavy as before.

My steps are silent as I walk downstairs and towards the kitchen, clearing my throat a few times before I talk, “Mrs. S? My curtain rod broke,” I say softly, voice gravelly from inuse. 

“Did it? Oh dear. I have to buy a new one. Would you mind getting it for me, Matthew?” She asks. “I’m making us breakfast. Let me get my purse.”

She walks slow. Slower than usual and I just want to get this over with. “Don’t worry about it. I got it. I’ll be back.”

I don’t wait for her reply before I’m out of the door. My eyes flutter in distaste at the brightness of the outdoors. I hear birds chirping and children laughing and I scowl at all of it and make my way down to the store, passing by a little Sainsbury Local.

I walk around the corner and go into the shops, looking for one curtain rod. I pick a random one before heading down the aisle when a girl turns the corner and runs right into me. We whisper quick apologies and I make my way to pay and head back to the B&B

Mrs. S’s breakfast is all prepared by the time I get back and she corners me into taking a seat and having breakfast with her. I don’t notice how hungry I am until she fixes me up a second plate of food.  

“Slow down. You’ll make yourself sick, Matthew.”

“I’m already sick.”

“You too, huh?” She murmurs.

I glance up at her but I don’t press on for more. She didn’t elaborate for a reason.

“Matthew, would you head down to Sainsbury and grab me a few things for me, darling?” She asks me, sliding me more bacon from the pan.

“You play dirty, this was a bribe, wasn’t it?” I ask her and smirk a bit as she pretends she didn’t hear a word I said.

“My list is on the counter. Also. You have a late fee on your movie.”

“Shit.”

“Get to it.”

I finish the bacon before I head out again. It’s been exactly a week since..... _ the incident _ . In those days I’ve gotten several angry voicemails from the band (minus one) and one lengthy email from my manager. I’ve responded to none. There’s no point. They know what I want and I’m not going to change my mind on it. 

I sigh and face the world once more, ignoring the road to the video store. What’s another few quid for a late fee, right?

 

.....................................

  
  


There’s something off about today, I can already feel it. There’s no annoying knock on my door for breakfast this morning, which I'm grateful and disappointed at all in one. It’s not so bad having someone come wake you up so you can eat their breakfast that they’ve cooked for just you and be kept company. 

I make my way out of the room and downstairs, padding down the hallway as quietly as possible. She didn’t wake me up but there’s a little note on the table with very swirly, hard to read writing: 

 

_ My Dearest Matthew,  _

 

_ Forgive the lack of breakfast this morning, I have a doctor’s appointment that I had to go to. I promise to make it up to you, sweet boy. Do feel better. Feel free to take more towels; they’re in the cabinet downstairs.  _

 

_ \-- Mrs. S. _

 

My lips turn up in a small, grateful grin. She thought to tell me where she was. How thoughtful. I pocket the little note and go outside, eyes squinting from the brightness of the sun. How strange to think I almost gave this up nights ago.

My feet keep me going despite the temporary blindness, moving along the pavement and heading off to get breakfast, breaking my routine for the second time here. It’s weird, heading into one of the restaurants so early to get their breakfast.  _ They  _ even think it’s weird. And they’re blunt about it, asking the questions before I can even get a greeting in

“Haven’t seen you in a while. Thought you ran out on us,” The waitress, Jas, asks me as she pours me a cup of coffee.

“Can’t scare me away that easily,” I reply around a mouthful of the warm drink.

“Where’d you go?”

“Just stayed in my room.”

“Need to talk about it?”

“I’d rather not,” I say bluntly.  
She nods and keeps on, not offended or taking it personally. 

“Trish, slide this boy some of your pancakes,” she says and I look up from the bar area to see Trish wink at me before heading to the back. 

I chuckle around the coffee and shake my head. This is nice. Not searching for the writer--taking a break on that...heartbreak. It’s what I needed. 

After the breakfast I just leave, leaving behind a few extra pounds for Jas but I don’t stay to say goodbye, I don’t want to stick around much longer. The writer was right about this place though, the wi fi here does suck. Best place to have it is down at a little coffee shop on the corner. 

I have to reply to my manager, just keep him updated that I’m alive and I’m not insane. Well. I’m--ok. I have to let him know I’m still alive. And with my phone, I can see all of the texts and missed calls, but I just notice that there’s one person who hasn’t tried to contact me. Just one. George.

I would reply to George if he ever messaged me. There’s nothing on that end. I try not to let the lack of communication bother me, but it still makes something unpleasant settle down in the pit of my stomach. 

I’ve never been good at endings and I hope this isn’t one now. George....he’s my best mate. And like a good best mate, I decide to keep ignoring him. Because I’m fucking trash.

But if I stay busy enough, I can make up excuses as to why I haven’t reached out to him yet--why I haven’t apologized and explained everything. But only if I’m busy. So I head out again after I finish with the emails.

My mind knows my way around. Mostly. Only to the places I’ve dared to venture to, which all seem to stay on the same strip as the B&B is on. Everything is in shouting distance of each other, just like in the movies. 

Being here, I’ve come to learn how someone could be so in love with this place, and hate it with a burning passion all at the same time. It’s so fucking easy to get trapped here. These patterns aren’t loud and noisy, they’re simple. They’re easy to get lost in and forever be stuck in them, the familiarity is its charm and its downfall. 

The top of the door rings as I make my way inside, nodding at the person behind the counter without really looking. 

“Morning! We’re having a half-off special for our valuable customers,” an unfamiliar voice says and I have to stop and look up.

An unfamiliar face matches up to the voice and I quirk my head a bit. “You’re not the other guy that works here,” I accuse.

The girl looks up from the papers on the counter and meets my eyes. She blinks a few times at me, a strange look crossing her features--her dark eyes looking over me a few times. “No. My mate was covering for me,” she explains slowly. She’s got a softness to her, all gentle with dark freckles dusting over her nose and cheeks. But the peroxide blonde cuts into that image, that and her eyes. 

“Glad you’re back then.”

“Thanks,” she replies shortly and her eyes leave mine and go back to the papers on the counter. 

Well. That’s the end of that conversation then. I make my way into the aisle of new movies looking through them again. I can’t stop glancing up at the new girl here, though. 

“Where were you?” I ask and she glances up and makes a little humming noise in response. “Where were you? You said you needed to be covered for....” Oh god. I’m being nosy and blunt. What have these small town people done to me?

“Oh. I just--I kinda’ went off and did my own thing for a little bit. Cleared my head,” she replies easily enough.

I nod. “I feel that.”

“Yeah? Is that why you’re here? Lord knows it’s not cause of all of the fantastic tourist attractions we have here,” she replies sardonically. 

I smirk. “Something like that,” I respond easily enough.

Her lips barely quirk up but her eyes light up. “You know you stick out like a sore thumb out here, right?”

“Yeah? Is it the hair?” Or is it the celebrity status?

She sighs and looks me up and down again. “It’s the all black. No one here wears all black for extended periods of time except if they're in mourning.”

“Maybe I am in mourning.”

“Are you?” She asks and it’s like she sees right through me now.

“A bit. It’s metaphorical, if anything,” I say and look down at the movies again, picking up a random one and pretending to show interest in it. “So you’ve heard of me?” I ask.

“What?”  
I look up again to see her confused face. “You said I wear black for extended periods of time. How would you know that if you just came back today?”

She smiles now, having been caught, “the people here aren’t exactly the quiet type.”

“Are you excluding yourself from the bunch?”

“I--listen, I just work at the video store.”

I nod again and chuckle. “So that’s a yes. You do exclude yourself.”

She doesn’t reply and I move to a different section now. 

I can’t keep myself quiet though. “What’s your name, love?”

“Nia.”

Nia. Definitely not a bug. I try not to let the sudden wave of disappointment hit me too hard. What would the chances be though? Me meeting the writer after I tried---yeah. Stupid. It’s stupid. 

“Well, what’s your name?” She asks, leaning on the counter now. “Can’t make me introduce myself only for you to not do it too. It’s rude.”

“Matty.”

She nods. There’s a lot of nodding going on. I figure it’s what new people do with each other, nod in agreeance as we tiptoe into new territory. 

“Seriously, mate,” she laughs, shaking her head and her short blond curls cover her face now. “What are you doing here?” She asks.

“I’m--well, I’m here for a mate. Or. A kind of friend. Lover? I’m--it’s complicated,” I admit for the first time since I’ve gotten here.

She snorts at my response. “I took a break from this place because of complicated-friend-lovers,” she laughs. “Looking for or hiding from them?”

“I--both. Both, I guess,” I chuckle. “It’s complicated.”

“Well, head-to-toe black wearing, complicated love life Matty, what’re you planning on renting today?” She asks and I can’t help but grin widely at her. 

There’s something about her--something that keeps me rooted to my spot and continue to talk. It makes me ask her about movies she likes and other random questions. It’s something that makes me put The Letter into the back of my mind, at least just for a little while.

  
  


...................................

 

The sun sets later here, I’m able to get home and go outside for a bit, enjoy the warm rays before it slowly goes down and hides behind the trees in the yard. I balance the laptop on my legs as I stare at a nearly blank screen, deciding what I want to write. 

I’m scowling at the screen when the back porch light comes on and I glance up and smile at Mrs. S, watching her come outside through the sliding screen door.

“Catching some rays out here?” She asks with a soft smile on her face.

“It was either that or spend more time in my room,” I laugh and put the laptop aside and stretch out. “Kind of feeling different today since my breakfast routine was ruined,” I joke lightly.

She laughs loudly and shakes her head as me. 

“How’re you feeling? How’d the trip to the doctor go?” I ask curiously.

“Ah, well, you know. I’m not as young as I used to be, someone my age is lucky to be walking around and living alone without help.”  
I nod and look her over, noticing that she looks her age tonight. She looks tired, and sad. Not her usual lively self. “How about I order us take out?” I offer gently. 

“I’d love to but this new medication makes me tired. You enjoy your night though,” she replies and retreats quietly, so unlike herself completely.

I get up and leave once I know she’s upstairs and ok. It only takes her until the next day before she’s herself again, and three more days pass here. Three days of patterns and people, but ignoring the one pattern I’m so desperate to keep up with again: reading The Letter. I tell myself it’s just a break, just a small break from it. I’m too fragile to handle more disappointment. 

So, for the third night in a row, I make my way to the movie place, ignoring the folded up papers resting in my suitcase now, and return another movie, quickly moving to go inside to the food place beside of it, getting my food to go. I’m on my way back past the movie place when I see familiar peroxide blonde hair with cigarette smoke in her wake. 

I speed up a bit, catching up to her easily and tapping her shoulder. “Mind if I bum one from you? Mrs. S hates when I smoke near her house.”

Nia turns and smiles, her upper lip bumping into the septum ring right above it. “She’s very particular, that one, but she’s got good intentions” she laughs a bit and reaches into her big sweater to grab her pack and pull it out, offering the lot to me. 

I chuckle and take one from her, reaching for a lighter in my own pockets that isn’t there. She reaches down again and grabs one, offering it up to me. There’s a little pickle on it and I light up and hand it back. 

“Nice lighter.”

“It’s an inside joke with me and my friend,” she says lightly. 

I nod and blow smoke out and there’s a pregnant, awkward pause between us both as we smoke against the movie building.

“So why h--

“Do you guys ever--

We both say at the same time, cutting ourselves off with awkward laughter. 

“Let’s try this again,” she laughs and takes a slow drag of her cigarette before speaking, “how’s the town been treating you?”

“The same as it always has.”

“Yeah, doesn't change much here, honestly.”

I laugh a little humorlessly at that, moving to lean against the side of the building right next to her. “That’s not so bad, though, is it? At least not here, I reckon. This town wasn't built to handle constant change.”

She shakes her head, looking out into the street distantly. “No. Reckon you’re right on that one.”

There’s silence between us then, not quite comfortable but not terribly awkward. It just is. We smoke without speaking and once she’s done with hers, she doesn’t move to go inside yet.

“Do you--do you ever feel trapped?” She asks, her voice so low I strain to hear her. 

I glance over at her before looking away to answer. “Yeah,” I reply honestly. “But not in places, usually. I feel trapped in--in like my body-my skin. Sometimes it feels like my soul is just so desperate and itching to get out, I can feel it scratching at my skin, ya know?”

She nods. “I know what you mean.”

“What about you?”

“I feel trapped here. It's like every time I leave, I just end up coming back here with no other place to go. It's been driving me mad.”

“Maybe you should get in your car and just start driving. Keep going straight until you know you can't see this town if you turn around and then just keep on going until this place is just a sad memory of who you once were.”

“Is that what you did? Just drove until you got here?”

“Not exactly. I picked this place.”

“Why would you ever?”

“There's...there's something here for me, I think. I hope.”

“Well i hope you find it, Matty.”

“Me too. And I hope one day you keep driving.”

She laughs at that. “Even if I keep driving, I'd still end up here. This place has like a spell on it or something--no matter how far you get, you always come back.”

“Maybe you're trapped in a snow globe.”

“A snow globe??”

“Hear me out: Maybe you’re trapped in a snowglobe. Like a giant one and you’re actually sitting on some giants desk,” I offer and look over at her.

She smirks up at me then before answering, “maybe I need someone to shake it up.”

I smirk back. “Maybe,” I agree and nod, putting out the cigarette. “I owe you one. You could come over to mine after you get off of here, can smoke more together.”

“I’ll think about it.”

  
“Don’t think too hard about it,” I laugh and I walk away back to the B&B.

 

...............................

Mrs. S greets me back with a nice dinner, making me laugh a bit as I listen to her talk about the other older dames in town and how jealous they are that she has me for company, amongst other gossip about the town that I’ve come to know. 

It makes my heart ache for a second, though. Makes me wonder if The Writer did this too, knew the same people, talked to them. Did they get along with everyone or were they an outsider like me? Is that why I can’t find them--did they just leave to find where they belong? Did they leave me behind?

“Have you met anyone your age around here?” She asks like a mother would ask a child who's just started a new school.

I wouldn't know that from experience, though. All my mother ever asked me was to pass her her bottle and shut the door, and then I would have to pretend I couldn't her hear crying for hours on end. And then I would lie to kids at my school about where mummy is.

“I have,” I respond finally, shaking my head to get rid of those thoughts. I'm a grown man, now. I don't need my mother.

“Yeah? Who?”

“Oh. Some girl who works at the video store.”

“Which one? Nia or June Bug?”

My eyes widen at the last name and my heart races. June Bug. Bug.

The sudden silence and lack of response must alert Mrs. S to something, she coughs a bit and stares me down, not looking at me, per se. It’s more like she’s looking into me, trying to find a way to see into my brain. And when that fails, she simply just asks. 

“What’re you thinking about, Matthew?” 

The Letter. The Writer. George and how much of a shit friend I am. She can take her pick, honestly. It’s all things people don’t actually want to hear about, even if they really do care about you. Most people don’t actually care if you’re unwell. I’ve learned that the hard way. 

But now I get to add on this June Bug person. Where is she? Is she coming back? 

“Oh let’s not get into that, Mrs. S. My head’s full of dark sh--stuff. It’s like pandora’s box in there,” l wave off, I can't talk about this right now. I don't want to get my hopes up again just to have them get burned up again and take me with them down in the flames.

She smiles at me, but it’s not the usual kind of smile she gives me. It’s a little sad with a hint of something else in her eyes. “You kids and your analogies. You never use them right to begin with. Do you know about Pandora’s box? Do you know what it is? It’s a box a curious girl had, she opened it up and unleashed such dark things into the world before closing it up. But when she closed it, there was one thing left, one tiny little thing that you must never give up: hope. You are right, Matty, you’re just like Pandora’s Box. You’re letting out all of these horrible things but you still have something in you, it’s locked up real tight but that’s all you’ve got left: hope, my boy.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of the chapter isn't supposed to offend anyone. It's a similar convo I actually had in person recently thanks to the recent elections where I live. It inspired the end a bit and I didn't realize it until it was written and I don't have the heart to remove it. My heart is heavy with the news and I took a few days off from finishing the chapter and tumblr because of it too. But it's all done now and yeah. I hope you guys like it.
> 
> Enjoy :)

 

I find myself quiet after the conversation with Mrs. S. Quiet and subdued, making my way upstairs to hide myself in my temporary room like a teenager who’s just been scolded. Maybe I have--only lowkey, though. 

The room is silent, just like it always is. It's something I’ve become quite accustomed to. It’s usually never quiet like this back home, I always have George in the other room working on music or watching telly. I shake that thought out of my head as soon as it comes, that’s not how it is here. Now there’s this heaviness in here, a silent truth that I can’t ignore since it’s the only reason why I’m here. 

_ June Bug. _

I don’t believe in coincidences but I also don’t believe in fate. What I’ve come to believe, no, what I’ve been taught through the writer is that there’s fixed points and it’s up to us to decide what we do then. And I’d be stupid if I didn’t think this is one of those fixed points. 

_ June _ . 

My back hits the bed first, relaxing into it and looking up at the ceiling like they always do in those ‘finding yourself’ type movies, even going as far as to tuck my hand behind my head and smirking up. This is how protagonists feel when they finally take a step in the right direction, when something finally goes their way. 

The silence is interrupted by a knock on my door and I chuckle, sitting up and going over to open it, expecting to see a little old lady with warm towels for tomorrow. Instead I’m met with fierce brown eyes and full lips quirked into a half smile.

“Did I think about it too long or is the invitation still up for grabs?” Nia asks lightly, resting her weight on one leg.

I smile back at her and then turn to look behind me to where The Letter is hidden away. 

“Yeah. Guess you can still come over for a bit,” I reply without looking at her, opening the door all the way so she can walk right in.

“You guess? I feel so welcome,” she replies and turns around once she’s in the middle of the room.

My eyes look over her, taking her in. She’s beautiful, but a distraction. “You’re welcome here any time,” I say easily to her, moving to go over to my drawer and get my cigarettes out. 

Beside my pack lays a half smoked joint and I look up at her, “which one?”

She laughs out in surprise. “Matty, what a naughty thing to do, what would Mrs. S say?”

“Nothing because she’ll never find out. It’ll be our secret, yeah?”

“Suppose so. If we get caught, I’m not taking any blame.”

“What? I’ll tell her it was your idea, the lot of it,” I reply, finally cracking a smile at her as I sit down and she follows suit. 

She sits on the corner of the bed, slightly angled in as she looks around. “You’ve got this place looking different.”

“Do I?”

“Yeah. Me and my mate tried to help Mrs. S redecorate but she’d never let us do it. Maybe she’s got a soft spot for you.”

“Maybe I do too. Are you part time movie worker, part time matchmaker?” I tease.

“You couldn’t afford me as your matchmaker,” she replies seriously.

I laugh and take the joint, putting it between my lips before lighting up and taking the first hit. I inhale the smoke, breathing it deep into my lungs, passing the joint over to her knowing fingers before turning my head to blow it out away from her face.

This is how it goes for a while, passing it back and forth until we’re both high and I’m on the floor because the bed felt unsteady to sit on and I’d rather lean against the side than be on it, while she lays across it and plays with my lighter. 

I can’t help but watch her fingers, short little things with half bitten nails. “Nasty habit,” I blurt out. “Biting your nails.”

“And smoking isn’t?”  
  
“Fair point.”

“Stop looking at my nails, you’re making me self conscious,” she says and quickly tucks in her fingers and I can’t help but laugh at that.

“M’sorry.”

“My roommates always getting on me about that too, really. She’s like my mum sometimes, swear.”

“Been doing a shit job of scolding you then, I mean, look at you. Chewing your nails, coming over to a boy’s room late at night to smoke. What will the people think?” I tease.

She laughs, “while the cat’s away the mice will play.”

“Mmmm. Makes sense, where is she?”

“Somewhere far, far from here.”

“Why aren’t you there with her?”

She looks away from me now and shrugs. “Cause she just needed time away from this place....from me too, I guess.”

“So when you said that you were away, it wasn’t with her?” I ask.

She looks up at me confused, “what?”

“When we first met, you said you had been away to get away from this place or some shit, you weren’t with your friend or whatever?”  
  
“Oh. No. I was in America--

“America? What were you doing there? That place is horrible. They drink cold tea.  _ Cold  _ tea. How weird is that?”

She laughs loudly and shakes her head, “it’s not weird, you’re just not used to it.”

“No, I’m definitely used to cold tea. My best mate, God, he hates me sometimes. Like I’m terrible about remembering I have tea so I always leave it half drank because it gets cold. He’s always accusing me of being wasteful and stuff so he drinks it himself,” I laugh and then I slowly stop when I remember more about George.

He still hasn’t replied.

“I would murder you for wasting tea,” she says slowly and I look over at her face before I smile at her, a genuine soft smile that makes me a bit warm and I feel that warmth down to my toes. 

“Pass the blunt will you?”

She leans forward on the bed and I help steady her with a hand on her knee, just so that she doesn’t fall, of course. She passes it over and my hand stays on her knee and I slowly smoke as she lays silently on my bed. It’s a little bit of a weird position, but it’s comfortable, for the most part. 

The comfortable silence and warmth of her skin eventually has me feeling intoxicated with comfort, it’s so much and I feel so heavy. I close my eyes, just for a second, and when I open them, I’m groggy and there’s sun in my eyes. 

I groan in discomfort and I blink a few times, standing up and rubbing at the bottom of my spine. My hand goes up to push my hair away from my face when it catches on paper. I reach up and pull it from my face, a sticky end pulling away easily. 

It’s a little, bright yellow sticky note with a sad face on it. I smirk at it and reach over to my phone, noticing the time, but mostly seeing that there’s a random number that texted me.

_ ‘Fell asleep on me. Prick.’ _

I chuckle at it and save the number in my phone as her name before I reach over and open up my bedside drawer, placing the sticky note down in there, right next to The Letter.   
  


............................................

 

“Do tell, how does one like you keep a straight face when someone rents porn?” I ask lightly, moving through the rows of movies as Nia pretends to not pay attention and flips a page in her magazine.

“I, honestly, don’t care. Everyone watches porn.”

“Right. But who rents it?” 

“The older generation.”

“Isn’t that weird?”

“It’d only be weird if I was jerkin’ their wrinkly co-hi, there. How are you?” She cuts herself off as a family of two walk in, a mother and her little son and I have to choke behind a copy of  _ Inception  _ to hide my laughter.

She huffs a bit and I walk over to the front to check out. “I enjoyed your farewell last night, very emosh.”

“I was emosh. I was talking to you about how I think I had figured out the meaning of life and why I was here and then you  _ snored, _ ” she accuses, her eyes narrowing into slits.

“Do tell.”

“No. I sad faced you, that conversation is over.”

“Come on, you tell me and I’ll tell you.”

“The ever elusive Matty would reveal his actual reasons for being in this rundown of a town?” She asks mockingly.

“Yes. He would.”

“Do tell.”

“Well, you see, it was  because he had no place he could stay in without getting tired of it and because there was nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the --”

“Dont quote  _ On the Road  _ at me, you twat. You promised to tell the truth.”

I laugh at that and hand her my card to slide and shrug. “Guess I’m a liar then.”

“I knew you were bluffing,” she says confidently, handing my card back over to me.

“Know me so well, don’t you?” I tease her.

“I don’t. Not yet, anyways. But men are easy to call out on their bluffs,” she says, leaning forward a bit on her elbows. “You see, a man’s got seventeen things he can do to give himself away--seventeen pantomimes. A girl’s got twenty, but a guy, he’s only got seventeen. And, darling, I’ve learned all of them.”

My lips quirk into a half smile, it slowly getting bigger the more she quotes Tarantino. She finishes and I look over her face as she doesn’t move or show any hint of emotion. “You’re bluffing.”

“How do you know?”

“I know a thing or two or seventeen about pantomimes,Tarantino” I reply and slip out of the store then, a smirk still present on my face as I walk over next door to get lunch alone.   
  


..........................

 

That night, I find myself at dinner again with Mrs. S. We ordered take out and I find that I kind of like this, this pseudo-mother-son relationship we’ve built. I think it’s something I’ve always wanted from my own mum. But we can’t always get what we want.

“I actually let Nia in, usually I wouldn’t since it was so late, but she’s a nice girl, so I gave you a pass this time,” she says in a semi-scolding tone.

“She is nice,” I agree.

“Her and June have always been so nice to me.”

“June Bug?”

“The one and only.”  
  
“What’s she like?” I ask and my throat feels a little dry as I do, I try to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest as I wait with a lump in my throat for her to tell me.

Mrs. S smiles down at her plate and shakes her head, “June’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met. She’s so strong, she knows exactly what she wants and where she’s going. I think it makes her stand out from anyone around here, it makes her like the leader of the blind. I think Nia’s a little lost without her.”

“What else?” I ask, feeling on the edge of desperate to know everything about her. 

“She goes to school here, right down the road at the little community college.”

“Yeah? What for? Do you know?”

“Journalism. She wants to be a big time writer for one of those fancy magazine places. Her and Nia talk about it all the time.”

I smile at the little insight into her life, feeling some sort of peace with it. Feeling at ease with the knowledge that the writer is here, well, sort of. She was here and I know who she is--has to be her, really. 

Mrs. S keeps talking about other things after that, things that don’t mean a thing to me, or shouldn’t. But I find myself responding and knowing what she's talking about. 

I find myself knowing about the little gossips of town, and it’s not the toxic gossip I’m used to from the papers and online columns, it’s innocent things. Who wore the wrong outfit, who said what about who, what secret ingredient is in someone’s chicken stew. 

Little things that I never thought I’d find important, and now I’m dying to learn the secret to share with George. This little town has done something to me, I think. And I'm not sure it's all bad.

We finish dinner and I go upstairs to my room, pulling out The Letter from the drawer. “I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you,” I say to it, laughing at myself for sounding so crazy. 

 

_ I found myself at a crossroad, once. In the middle of the night, plagued by these crazy dreams. I had finally lost it, honestly. My doctors called me every day to make sure I stayed alive, but I just kept refusing to go in and get myself help. And one night, I woke up from a nightmare, I think. And I saw a light outside my window and I just followed it. At the time, I thought it was an angel. _

_ It lead me to a crossroads, some backwoods area of my town that was so sketchy, but I couldn’t even get myself to care at that point. _

_ But there I was and I laid in the middle of the ground, alone and staring up at the sky. I thought of your album, I thought of what words you’d sang.  _

_ I thought of your loneliness, of how you feel sometimes. How it must feel to be so famous, so high that no one can touch you and everyone adores you, but to still feel so.....alone.  _

_ I think of when things go bad with you and who do you blame? I like to blame my God. I do. I blame God all the time and believe it’s his fault, actually. _

_ I thought of alternate universes, of time travel. I thought of Interstellar, how he was ghost in the book case. His love for his daughter is what saved the whole planet, what saved her. His desire to go home to her. _

_ And I laid there in the middle of the four roads and I thought, I have so much life in me that I don’t even want. What will save me? What desire is strong enough to make me go home? _

_ And I need to share this moment with you, it’s probably the most important moment in the universe for me.  _

_ Because in that moment I had nothing but a bottle of pills that had snuck into my hand on my way out. I had no reason to go home. And then I thought of you and your music and I realized what made me want to go home. _

 

_ La poesie est dans la rue. _

 

_ Poetry is in the streets. _

 

_ Poetry is everywhere.  _

 

_ Poetry is within me. _

 

_ And finally, finally, my desire became clear. My desire that would take me home: to write.  _

_ And I did go home, I actually woke up the next day and wrote until my fingers cramped up. First time in ages. What made me finally realize that I needed to thank you, was when I saw the date. Of course the first time I write would be on June 1st.  _

_ I know you don’t believe in God or the devil, but I believe in angels. I believe the universe works in wondrous of ways that we will never comprehend, regardless of a celestial being or not. I believe that things aren’t always what they seem. Maybe this is one of the cases. _

_ We’ve been so busy looking up at the sky to help us, begging for angels, when they’ve been here all along.You don’t believe in any of this, but I believe in you. You’re a tangible thing and your music is here and what you say means so much to me, inspires me all the time. _

_ You’re an angel to me, Matty Healy. You saved me and you will never know how much that means to me. _

  
  


But I do, I do know how much that means because The Writer did the same for me. They saved me too. 

  
  


.......................

  
  


“Truly, we have to stop meeting like this,” Nia laughs as I walk towards her on the side of the movie building.   
  
“Stop smoking,” I reply and lean against the brick right next to her, holding out my hand expectantly as she hands me her cigarette.

“You first.”

“Nah. No. Never, I’m too stressed to stop. I’d end up going back to something shittier like coke or something,” I reply easily enough and take a few puffs before handing it back to her.

“Mm. That’s a rough one. M’sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was all a while ago. I’m good now.”  
  
She doesn’t reply and I laugh a bit. “I didn’t mean to make things so down. It was just like an offhanded comment”

“Sorry, it got me sad,” she laughs a bit and shakes her head. “What’re you doing here anyways?”

“Well. Was hoping to bum a fag off you, honestly,” I joke and laugh a bit, still feeling the high from the knowledge from Mrs. S and the ego stroke The Letter always gives me. “And to see if you wanted share a spliff tonight again.”

“I wasn’t too terrible of company?”   


“Oh, I never said that. You were the absolute worse but Mrs. S hates sharing her weed with me,” I joke and she snorts and whips her hand out to smack my arm playfully.

“Am I providing the blunt tonight?”

“I am running low. Usually G--my mate would get the weed for me, honestly.”

“I’m starting to run low too, my dealer’s currently on holiday,” she says lightly and shrugs. “We’ll make it work.”

“Spread it thin until we get desperate and start smoking weird herbs from the shops.”

“Don’t be daft. We’ll move on to inhaling sharpies until our eyes cross. That’s how they do it in the big leagues, I’ve heard.”

I laugh and shake my head, enjoying the banter that comes with meeting new people. People that don’t already know your whole life story and name. “So mine?” I ask.

“We can do mine,” she offers. “We can be less quiet and smoke wherever we want.”

“Brilliant. When do you get off?”

“Now. I’m closing up early.”

“You won’t get in trouble?”

She laughs loudly now, walking away from the building and throwing her head back. “I’m sure you’ve broken a few rules before,” she laughs. “At least snuck out of your mum’s house or threw away a recycled item.”

I laugh too and shake my head, “you’ve no idea what I’ve gotten myself into.”

“All black and a mow-hawk? I’ve got a pretty good idea.”

“Are you stereotyping me?”

“Weird, isn’t it, being on the other side?” She asks, voice smug, and walks inside to close up. 

I don’t follow her in, letting her finish up inside before I follow her home to a row of small flats down the road. Everything here is in walking distance. It used to drive me mad, feeling so big in a little place. But here? Here’s a little different, honestly.

I feel--not small, but almost invisible. Translucent, not quite completely gone but someone has to look close to see me. I feel insignificant and it feels nice, not standing in the middle of everyone with a spotlight on me, but able to blend in with everyone else. I didn’t realize how much I missed that, how much I missed feeling normal.

I’ve missed normal people too. People like Nia, really. Smart mouthed and not afraid to be who they are. She leads us up some stairs to the second floor and unlocks it. There’s no apologies on the size or the mess, she’s so unapologetically her.

The flat  _ is  _ small. But it’s so obviously lived in by girls. Total hipster ones, at that. There’s fairy lights in some parts and weird paintings on the walls. Little plants everywhere, with mixed matched couches that somehow just work together. The magic of women. 

“This is the living room, kitchen, bathroom, June’s room, and my room is over here. You can kind of venture anywhere but June likes her room to be off limits,” Nia says, pointing to every room respectively.

My eyes linger on the one right across from where she pointed to hers. Of fucking course June lives here. 

“Don’t believe in coincidences,” I mumble to myself as I stare at the little wooden name plate on her room, little ladybugs on random parts of the letters. 

“What’d you say?”

“Sorry,” I laugh, wiping my face with two hands and just staring, ”thinking out loud.”

“Weirdo,” she accuses and walks around me to get into her room, leaving the door open so I can follow. 

She walks in and I stare after her for a moment before I walk up to the door across from Nia’s, fingering the nameplate and feeling the dents and dips and the coolness of it. I smile softly and back away, finally following Nia into her room and closing the door behind me when Nia eyes it when I almost walk away. 

I look around her room once I’m officially in. It’s a bit messy, with books everywhere and more fairy lights and plants. “Do you have your own weed plant?” I ask suddenly, looking around for one. Well, it’d fit with the aesthetic.

“I used to. It was high maintenance so I killed it. Not on purpose. But all these plants are fake. I can’t keep anything alive longer than a week.”

“Wow. You've got yourself a real green thumb there,” I snort and she glares daggers at me as she opens up her little box and takes out stuff.

“You've got jokes, mate. You've got jokes. Now be a love and roll the joint for us so I don't have to.”

I laugh and nod and take the little bag from her and the papers. She sighs and moves over as if it takes so much effort to scoot over. “Oh quit complaining,” I chuckle, looking around and grabbing a book from her desk.

“Not Bukowski,” she whines.

“Oh. Shit. He’s a good one, isn’t he. Well Shit. Give me a shit book, got a  _ Twilight  _ book or any James Green, dude.”

“James Green?”   


“The one who wrote about the cancer kids and Anne Frank?”   


“John Green, you hipster. Don’t pretend you don’t know his name,” she laughs and hands me the same book I’m talking about.

I smile up at her and move to crush the weed down and roll the blunt for us on the cover. I work in silence, breaking it when I glance up at a picture next to her bed. She’s in a shiny, dark green robe with two people of different races on her side. 

“Mum and dad. It was my graduation. The only time they agreed to be civil and in the same country again,” she laughs, looking at the photo with fondness. “Look just like them, right?”

I look at it and laugh. She looks nothing like either of them. “Totally, you three look like triplets.”

She snorts and shoves me a bit. “People don’t usually think I’m either of their kid. Mixed kid probs, right?”

“I don’t want to be my parent’s kid. White boy probs,” I joke. Sort of. Not really. 

“People used to make fun of me for being mixed. Especially when I went to America where my dad lives, they have a big race issue there. Being half black problems.”

“I’ve never experienced that. White privilege.”

She claps her hands at that and nods, laughing a bit before sobering up with her reply, “I’m not enough for either side, honestly. I’m too black to be white, and I’m too white to be black. Fucking sucks, man.”

She doesn’t laugh after that, the joke got serious. Well. For her it was always serious. 

“What was it like?” I ask her softly, looking over the small dots on her face, connecting them all the way up until I reach her dark eyes. I hand her the blunt first.

She lights it up and takes the first puff before talking slowly, “it was...it was like growing up confused. Two half-families tearing at me, telling me neither way was proper. I had to walk this line of not too black, not too white in front of each of them. I couldn’t be myself. Not properly, anyways,” she says slowly and I can see it then, see the lines dividing her. Which stereotype she clings on to and which ones she rejects. “And people think it’s alright to erase either part of you like ‘oh, you’re just a black girl’ or ‘oh, you don’t even look  _ really  _ black’, like who the fuck says that?”

“Assholes who think what they say matters. Trust me. I’m one of them and I swear I think my opinion is the only one that matters sometimes.”

She snorts and shoves at my arm, shaking her head and I grab the blunt from her hands before taking a deep hit. We pass it back and forth again like the first night, this weed is different though. Has both of us coughing a bit more than mine did. 

“I like it better mixed in with sheesha,” she admits, coughing again before passing back the blunt over to me. “I have a dragon hookah.”

“A dragon hookah?” I ask a little too loudly, excitement taking over me a bit.

And that's how I spend the next hour or so, smoking weed mixed in with some weird flavor from the snout of a black dragon and Somewhere in the haze of all of the smoke and the comfort of being in each other’s presence with no need to impress each other or keep each other entertained with words, Nia’s the one to fall asleep on me. So I leave a little sticky note over her phone, a little  _ lame  _ on the piece of paper before I leave, glancing over at the door right across from hers. The curiosity is killing me, but I don’t let it take over. I’ll see her one day. One day June will be here and I’ll have so much to say and so much to ask, but for now, I’ll just leave and wait for that day to come, easily distracting myself with pretty girls who fall asleep on me.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a much longer chapter than I'm used to writing, but it's just two combined. I hope you guys enjoyed your holidays!  
> Enjoy :)

“As much as I love sneaking you in my room like I'm a teenager or smoking out of your dragon hookah,” I start, walking slowly beside of her, watching the way our shadows tangle together and blend, “I think we need a change of pace.”

It's been exactly a week since we started hanging out. A week of building up a routine that I didn't expect. Breakfast before she goes into work, sometimes lunch on her break, and we always end up in each other's beds, passed out from all of the smoking. It's a nice routine, but routine is what I'm trying to get away from.

She snorts and bumps her hip into me and suddenly out shadows are some contorted monster that I can't be frightened of, her laughs pulls those thoughts away and she pulls me into the diner. “Well, we've got endless possibilities of fun.  _ But.” _

“Ah, yes. There is always a but,” I fill in during the dramatic moment of silence she takes as I open the door and we do an awkward shuffle to slip inside.

“And never the fun kind, either,” she says softly, careful of the curious ears that fill the diner, walking past me and taking her spot in the corner of the corner booth, legs curling up on the seat like a child. “But, as I was saying, none of them exist in a ten mile radius. You're in bumfuck nowhere, love,” she says easily enough.

I groan and shrug my jacket off, hands going to my hair to slick back the fallen curly pieces so I can inspect the menu for the hundreth time. How do people do this? How do they stay? How did The Writer stay here so long? So alone? Is that why June's gone? “Well-uh--well let's travel out of here, then. Exit the ten mile radius and find some fun.

“Hm, tempting, where do you suggest?”

“Where do you?”

Nia snorts, “hell if I know,” and proceeds to pick up the menu from the table.

I sigh audibly, actually reading over the menu again. It's the same fucking thing. This habit, it's all the same. The people, the menu, the food, the gossip, the pe—well. Maybe not all of the people are new. There's been a small split in the pattern. I look up from the blurring words to watch Nia's face, her eyes looking off to the side in thought.

“There's like this little fair thing coming to town this weekend, I think,” she says, slowly coming to again. “Or next weekend. Maybe it was last weekend. I really can't remember, my memory's going out on me. I'm getting old.”

I smirk at her and shake my head, “literally, I've got fucking years on you. You're, what? Like thirte--” I'm interrupted by the need to dodge whatever she's just thrown at me to get me to stop talking.

“Anyways, old man, I'm trying to find what I want to eat,” she states matter-of-factly and looks down at the actual menu this time and I laugh out loudly, shocking her a bit.

 

“Why the bloody hell are you looking at the menu, mate?” I ask, snatching it out of her hands.

“Oi! I was looking at that.”

“Really?” I ask and move the menu away from her again as she leans forward to snatch it back from me. “Were you checking out the pancakes with raspberry syrup cause you already know what it looks like. You have it every time we come here. Literally. Every single time,” I punctuate each word with a shake of the menu to show I'm serious.

“Well. I do- but maybe I wanna try something different.”

 

“Do you now?” I ask, head tilting in cautious curiosity.

“Yes.”

“By all means, then.”

I hand it back and watch her look over it a few times before Debbie, the usual morning waitress, walks over to get our order. “What're you having, handsome? The full English again?”

 

“Eh. Yeah, why not.”

“And you, dear?”

Nia looks up at that, eyes a bit too wide to be comfortable, and lets the menu tip over and fall closer to her face, hiding her nose and mouth but keeping her eyes revealed. “I’ll have pancakes with raspberry syrup,” her voice is small and weak.

 

“I knew it,” I groan in disappointment, much louder than she had been.

She groans, too, at her own shame and hides behind the menu fully as I laugh at her, full on cacophonous laugh that hurts my stomach and has a tear rolling down my cheek. It’s the first time in a long time since time laughed with someone, since I’ve felt a connection with another person--someone other than The Writer and words on a page.

She smiles back at me, grinning wide, her dark eyes shining bright in the dull morning light. I stop the laughter and just stare for a second, watching the hundreds of freckles on her face just slowly move with how she contorts her face to convey different emotions with just the muscles beneath her flesh.

I get a little lost in the thousands of dark specks glittering her face, watching the gold septum give off a bright spot of light just above her cupids bow which turns and twists as she talks and I fail to capture the words in my head. Her eyes get brighter, more animated as she keeps talking, her hand moving from her cup of tea to slide across the table and lay directly in front of mine. A simple twitch is all we need to have our skins touching.

I slide my hands back a bit and she, shyly, slides her back into her lap. I can't get lost in Nia's freckles. I have other things to think about. So I turn over in my head and there's a part of The Letter that I recite in my head as our little moment plays in the background in my mind, like a GIF or something.

 

_ Humans need more than just air, or water to live. We all need this thing that is so simple and given to us everyday, but not so easily given since we crave it more than anything else. I didn’t realize I had been deprived so much of it until it was presented to me in the shape of a boy. _

_ A loud boy who swore too much and always tasted like cigarettes. _

_ He was like me, both of us a little fucked up and on the edge of unloved. Except he was given a chance, he just didn’t take it. _

_ We need human affection. Crave it constantly with different emotions. _

_ When you’re sad, you want a hug. When you’re happy, you want someone to shower you with happiness. When you’re angry, you want to use your hands to hurt. _

 

“Have you even heard a word I said?” Nia asks, ripping me away from my headspace.

“I'm sorry.”

“Wow. I could've been telling you something real personal and emosh.”

“Were you?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Uhm. I have an idea,” I say slowly, watching her face for the reaction.

Her eyebrows furrow and the corners of her mouth turn and the big freckle on her cheek is hidden by a wrinkle from her frown. “What is it?”

“Just...be ready by 6.”

“I have work. I close tonight.”

“Close early.”

“I can't.”

“You literally do it all the time, come on. It'll be worth it. We're breaking some bad habits tonight.”

 

She perks up at that. “Do tell.”

“Close up early. Be ready by six. I'll be at yours probably later than what I say because I'm really bad at time and you won't be ready because—because you're you and if I'm bad at time, you don't even know what time is.”

She laughs loudly at that and I watch as her cheeks dimple and I feel a tug in my stomach, something weird and foreign that I ignore by thinking of The Letter.

 

…......................................................................

 

I knock on her door a few times, forty minutes after of when I said I'd be there, waiting outside until she opens it and greets me with a wide smile. “Well. You clean up nice,” she compliments, her eyes scanning over me up and down a few times before she nods in approval.

She's in dark clothes, her massively curly blonde hair slicked back with her bangs so I can actually see all of her face now. God, those freckles are murderous at times. Especially now when none of her is hidden.

“I wish I could say the same about you,” I reply on a knee jerk reaction, ruining the moment in my head, and chuckling when her fist collides with my arm playfully.

“You’re a dick. Where are we going? What're we doing?”

“Hood rat shit.”

“I love doing hood rat shit in heels.”

I lead the way down the street, walking beside of her quietly towards the train station. “Where’re we headed? You’re not kidnapping me are you?” She asks, her heels clicking loudly on the pavement.

“You wish. I’d hand you back in a heartbeat.”

She laughs and shivers a bit, walking closer to me, searching for warmth. I can feel the heat from her arm on mine. I can imagine what it’d be like to touch her cooling skin, still magically warm even in this chilly weather. Or how heated it would be if she was in her bed and under the covers. Under me.

“Where are we going, kidnapper?” She asks, breaking my train of thought (probably for the better, though, honestly.)

“Question is, where aren’t we going?”

“Way to stay cryptic.”

“You’ll see.”

..............................

“I didn’t fancy you the type to be into places like these,” she comments as she sits down in a booth, unable to curl up in her usual corner because we're far from the diner and her home now.

It’s nothing fancy. Nowhere I would’ve taken someone I wanted to impress so I could shag later. It’s a family place, somewhere where my mum would have taken us had she not been too busy with drugs and attempts to kill herself. This is the type of place me and George would've gone to in high school, loaded up in his mum's van with Ross and Adam and then dine and dashed, not because we were poor anything, but because we wanted attention and thought we were invincible. God. We were such prats. Well. I'm still a prat. I just pay for my meals now.

“I hear they have an amazing appetizer sampler. The reviews said so.”

“You sound like my nan.”

“Does your nan know how to use google? You've got a smart one on your hands. Mine didn't even know how to unlock her phone.”

She grins at that and sits up on her elbows on the table. “You should be a good grandson and teach her.”

“I can't. She's six feet under and I don't think they get good wifi down there.”

She deflates at that and her eyebrows furrow again, like earlier when she was wanting to know where I was taking her, but now she's got a worried brow and sad eyes. “I'm so sorry about your nan.”

“It was years ago,” I say and shake my head, letting it drop easily. “Don’t let my cathartic depressing jokes deter the mood, love.”

“Alright, alright,” she sighs, looking back down at the menu, her short locks of blonde hair falling out of the slicked look she had earlier, refusing to be tamed as she attempts to read. I bet she likes her hair pulled, when people mouth at her neck, I'm sure she enjoys it. She seems like the type. “Can’t get the pancakes here.”

“Watch me.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Oh. They sell wings here. I know this sports bar that sells the best wings. Remind me to take you one day,” she says offhandedly.

“Ok,” I reply and smirk as I get a small idea.

We order an appetizer, something that samples all the really good ones they sell here, and we chat through it, laughing a lot as she tries one of the weirder ones and pulls faces that give me an excuse to watch her face closely. When the waiter comes back over for our food orders, I just ask for the check instead and Nia laughs a bit awkwardly as he leaves it on the table and leaves.

“Whatre you doing, weirdo?”

“I’m craving some wings. Know of any place?” I ask with a smirk and a wink, leaving money on the table before walking out of there without looking back.

She laughs loudly, I hear it so clearly like she's right in my ear. I think it doesn't matter where I am, I feel like I'd be able to hear her obnoxiously loud laugh from practically anywhere. It's not just because it's loud and annoying, but because it's something I've grown so used to listening to, something I've become in tuned with. Something I crave and let myself indulge in sometimes.

We get ouside and she leads the way, silently walking beside of each other and laughing as we struggle against the current of people outside. We're used to walking next to each other back in the town, where everyone's got manners and knows each other, we're used to having no one in our way. We can't get lost there, but here? Here we can. That's the excuse I give myself when she sneaks her hand into mine and laces our fingers together, it's just so that we don't get separated. That's all. I wouldn't want to lose her.

Once we're sure we won't drift apart, we walk easily now with people moving out of the way. I've forgotten how it was out here, with so many people and so many lights, so alive and so loud. I think I didn't realize how much I missed it until I'm back in the middle of the city with a pretty girl on my arm. There'd been so many times where that was the case but we'd never been on our way to eat wings, usually just to my hotel with the paps circling around us like vultures. I think I like this better. Not just because the lack of paps, but because of the company.

My company of the night leads me into this loud sports bar, where I can barely hear anything except the other people screaming and cheering for their teams one television screens all around the place. I can smell the stale stench of beer in the air and my stomach clenches in yearning, craving the taste of liquor on my tongue.

She leads me to one of the booths off to the side of the restaurant, laughing as she slides in. “It’s a bit rubbish, honestly. But I’m telling you, their wings are banging,” she says, and just her talking is enough to distract me from my other wants of the night.

“If the wings suck I’m going to need compensation,” I say and she makes a face.

“What?” She asks, louder this time.

I lean in close, mouth just over her ear. “If the wings suck, I'm going to need compensation for my pain and suffering,” I say slowly this time, watching her arm break out in goosebumps.

“How would you like to be compensated?” She asks, looking up at me and into my eyes, stare unwavering and brave.

It’s a loaded question, a double edged sword. On one side of the sword is dull, innocent, while the other sharp with the promise of something more, something dirty. I look her over once again, taking in her form, her curves that are accentuated by the dark, tight material she wears, and her hair just begging to have my fingers in it, to pull and learn whether or not she likes it pulled when I get at her neck. I know exactly how I would want to be compensated.

“We can work something out.”

“I’m sure we can,” she agrees and she knows the implications, but she's a brave girl.

But she’s bloody right and no compensation is needed. Maybe there's a reason for that because the wings, as it turns out, are amazing. The best I’ve had in a long time and the spell is broken between us, the heaviness and the promise of more is forgotten with a good laugh between friends. And what a good laugh it is, watching her try to eat them with decency and a fork, but failing miserably with sauce all down her chin.

Such a strange girl. She doesn’t belong in her small town but she doesn’t belong out here, either, I've come to notice. But I haven’t figured out where she belongs yet.

When our bellies are full with the over processed meat and it's tangy sauce, we find ourselves outside again after having paid. My ears ring a bit from having gone to such a loud environment to something much quieter.

“I can hear again,” she chuckles.

I’m used to the loud crowds, but I’ve been out of practice. “Only slight hearing damage.”

“I think you'll live.”

“Probably. I'll live without your compensation, it seems,” I say as we start walking again. “Looks like I won't be needing anything for my pain and suffering.”

“Bugger.”

It's for the best. There are fixed points and maybe this is one of them. Maybe we're not supposed to cross the line. That line makes things messy and messes things up. This is how it's supposed to be. But I don't want the night to end. If this is a fixed point and I can't get what I want, I'll get the most—I'll make the most out of tonight and take what I can get.

“I want dessert,” I say out of the blue, suddenly turning around and grabbing her hand so she follows after me. The night isn't over. It doesn't feel finished. Not yet.

“We just left the bar, Matty, they could--

 

“Sh. We’re restaurant hopping. It’s just like bar hopping but minus the alcohol.”

“I’m not a big drinker.”

Neither am I. I’m just an alcoholic. There's a difference. I think.

I lead her further and further away from the loud streets and into the brighter area, much quieter in volume but ostentatious in the visuals. The rich do value their visuals. And they value their sweets.

I move us into a smaller restaurant, chuckling when Nia squirms uncomfortably. “I feel so underdressed and out of place,” she whispers as the host writes down our name for the table.

“They’re all judging us,” I reply and smile wider now, looking around at all of the people there, so rich and mighty and thinking they're on top and above everyone else. With their prescription pills hidden in their expensive purses and back pockets, with their lonely houses and constant shopping to fill the voids they don't understand.

This is how it was with my parents. They were so desperate, at one point, to keep up the looks of how perfect our family was, that the biggest price we paid was probably our own sanity. I hope it was worth it to them.

“You just love pissing everyone off,” she accuses

“No. I like proving them wrong.”

She looks up at me and squeezes my hand and she lets me lead her when we’re lead through the Italian inspired room. “Uhm. Mate. Excuse me, is there like a better view than this?” I ask him. He’s young, his ears are stretched and he’s got holes in his face where piercings should be. He’s my kind of dude.

The boy looks at me and smirks. “Right this way,” he says and leads us away from the booths and somewhere deeper into the building.

It’s into an elevator and then up and up and up and oh. Oh. yeah. Roof access. My man.

We follow him out to the roof where there's a few tables and chairs but no ones outside. Too cold. But whatever, we can brave it together. For the aesthetic. I slip him some cash into his hand and he chuckles. “Guaranteed to get laid, mate,” he chuckles and winks before disappearing and I laugh at the irony of it all. Yeah, it would've been perfect. If Gemma could see, she's be red with jealousy. Or is it green? I can never remember.

“All of this for bloody dessert?” She huffs and shakes her head, shivering a bit more now that we’re higher up.

I’ve tried to not make it so much like a date, but I can’t help but slip my own jacket off and hand it over to her. “If you freeze to death, I won’t get any fucking dessert because I‘ll have to talk to the cops about how you died and no. No. Truly this is for my benefit. Take it and don’t argue,” I say when I see her mouth opens to argue.

“If you insist,” she laughs and slips her hands through my jacket and wears it, snuggling up a bit more and shivering until she warms up enough and the shivers stop on their own.

I can make her shiver without it even being cold. I could do it with one finger, or maybe just my words in her ear.

“What is all of this? Taking me out to dinner and always keeping me company and stuff?” She asks, looking at me oddly.

“I--I don’t know. I wanted to do something, I guess.”

She stays quiet for what feels like a long time, but when she does talk again, she seems a bit different. “You’re a strange one, Matty,” she says softly. “You’re not how I thought you’d be.”

“I told you, I love surprising people.”

“Who even are you?” She asks and my heart races. I’m Matty. I’m--I’m just Matty. No 1975. No fame. No anything. Just me. “What’s someone like you doing in a town like mine?”

“Funny. I was going to ask the same question.”

“You’re-- but you’re different, Matty. You don’t belong in a snowglobe. You belong—you belong out there in the world,” she says, voice going impossibly soft and gentle. She worries at her lower lip with her teeth for a few moments before talking again. “You...when we first met, you said you were here because of someone. Is she really—does she really mean that much to you?”

I swallow thickly, eyes darting to the left and away from her stare. The Writer. I’m here because of her. “She--she practically-- I owe her--she’s...it’s complicated.”

“Is that why you're not with her?”

 

“It's--I’m trying to be.”

“Whats stopping you?”

“Complications....distractions,” I say and at the second word, my eyes meet hers. Yes. Distractions are definitely putting plans on hold for now. Until June comes back, of course . “Why do  _ you _ stay?” I counter.

“Honestly....June” she whispers. “I owe her a lot, practically everything, really. She like—she saved me. She has this way of making this place seem not so bad and maybe, sometimes awesome. I don't know. She's my best mate. I can't leave without her.”

It seems like June has a way of making people stay. It must be a part of her charm.

“Where is she now?” I ask.

“Holiday,” she says and looks down at her lap. “It’s--it’s complicated. I did something. I fucked something up and what I did—it's why I was gone too. I went out of the country to avoid it and when I came back, she had taken off too. I--it’s always been me and her, but it’s never been just me and her, get me?” She asks and I nod as I think about it. It's always been me and, surprisingly enough, not George. Me and Adam from the start, it's just that others came into our lives and well, it's always us two but plus others.

“We--his name is Garrett,” she starts up again after I nod. “He--he moved here when he was a bit older. He was...different. He didn’t fit in like the others. Like me and June. And June, God, everyone loved June. Still love her. And so did he. For a long time. Pined after her all throughout high school. And then...something changed. He was different and suddenly, he was giving me the attention. We just started dating and I knew, I fucking knew how he felt about June but I think, then, he just knew it would never happen and I knew it would backfire someday, but I did it anyways. He was nice and he gave me some attention, so why not? So we dated. And I never realized how or why someone could stay with someone so, so toxic for so long.'

“Not until I was the one who had to break it off and breaking up with someone like Garrett, it's like ripping them right out of your soul. Because they're leeches and they latch on and they feed and feed until there's nothing left of you. And like, people don’t tell you how to deal with things like that. How to ask for help or tell your friends what someone like that did. June saw a broken boy. I saw a ticking time bomb and I was just always collateral damage in his explosions,” she says softly and I watch as the wind blows some more hair into her face. She curls in on herself and I’m not sure if it’s because she’s cold again or she’s trying to make herself feel as small as possible, a reaction she might be used to because of her ex. It makes something dark coil in my stomach, a small hatred for the faceless dude.

 

“What happened after you dumped him?”

 

“We were the three musketeers. Me, June, and Garrett. June.... she flipped. I told you, she saw a broken boy who needed saving. She didn't know—or didn't want to accept that I needed saving too. For her, I had ruined our dynamic. I ruined the plans. It was my fault we were all so divided. So, me and her had this big fight and I went to my dad’s to get away and she and Garrett just kind of, left too. I’m not sure where. But they’re coming back and I really wish he wouldn’t. I want June back because she's my best friend. But Garrett...he's just—he has a way of poisoning your mind. I don't want that near me again.”

“Are you scared of him?” I ask slowly, fists clenched tightly.

 

“No. God, no. He’d never lay a hand on me. But you don’t need to physically hurt someone to scar them, ya know?

 

I nod. “I--that’s fucking awful.” I’d kick his teeth in if I ever fucking see him.

 

She nods to and then smiles a bit. “Your turn.”

“What?”

“Let's compare scars. I show you, you show me, type of deal. Come on. I was vulnerable, don't let me be the only one out here like that.”

I chuckle and shake my head. “I-uh--I’m just lonely.”

Her head tilts in interest now. “Why?”

“I--my job, like my job out there,” I say and vaguely motion out towards the city, “is isolating. Like there’s always people around me but they don’t really know me. They don’t understand, they don’t know what goes on in my head. No one does. My best mate used to but then, I don’t know, somewhere along the road I just stopped talking to him or anyone about it. And like, I'm used to being alone. But I’ve never felt this lonely, ya know? This far from the planet. I kind of feel like I'm just an outsider looking in, I don't get other people, I don't get how they work. I don't understand it, not anymore. I don't feel human. I'm an alien, I think.”

She smiles at that and shakes her head. “You're not an alien.”

“No, probably not,” I agree, wetting my lower lip to keep it from getting dry and breaking. “It'd explain some things, though. Like...why I'm so....it was fucking new years,” I say, interupting the first train of thought to explain. I want her to understand. I need her to. “New Years and my family went out when they knew I was taking off of work to come see them. And my job is crazy, it's insane. I'm not religious or sentimental about the holidays, but it's the first year my dad's gone. He's got a new family up North and my mum was coping like she usually does. I didn't really grow up with her. I didn't grow up with anyone. Except my little brother and he's so alone too and he copes just like mum....just like me,” I finally admit out loud.

“They left me alone, bringing in the New Year in a small room that hasn't felt like home in years. I sat there just, just trying to think of someone to spend it with. I really mucked it up with my ex and my friends and they were all so happy, so not alone. I didn't have anyone cause I'd pushed everyone so fucking far from me, that they just—they weren't there. I had no one,” I whisper and look away, wiping under my nose and getting myself together. “I felt like no one cared enough about me to care if I lived or not so I was--I was gonna like, off myself or something. I don’t know. I was really drunk and not thinking straight.”

 

“Jesus fucking Christ, Matty.”

“Yeah. I know. I wasn't-- just wanted out. And then she was there. The only one there. She talked me down, made me feel like I wasn’t alone like, like I wasn't an alien. Or that I was an alien, but it didn't matter because she was too and she's out there just as lonely as I am,” I say softly. “A half of a whole, it feels like. And I'm not a romantic or sentimental like that, but—but what if she's like what people talk about, what people dream of. What if we're the same soul split in half or something like that. I don't fucking know. But that's what she means to me. She means..."

“Home,” Nia offers.

I nod slowly, biting my lower lip as I agree. “I don't think I've ever had one of those. Always traveling around, life always just—she's like a constant I want. A pattern I could never get tired of.” One that I so desperately need.

“So why here?” She asks. “Well. Not on the roof, but you know what I mean.”

I snort and shrug. “I don’t--I was just following something she had said. I think I was trying to find myself first, before...” before I found her. “I thought it'd help, thought it'd work.”

“Did it?”

“Dessert.”

“What?”

“Let’s order that dessert,” I say, avoiding the question I can’t answer.

And we order that dessert I promised her, eating it over comfortable but somber silence. She waits until I’ve paid--insisting she can get it but I don't let her--before she gets up and goes to the edge of the roof, just looking out to the city below. It’s not the prettiest of skylines, but it’ll do.

“This reminds me of a cheaper version of Paris,” I say softly.

“You’ve been?”

“No. Google images does wonders for the imagination,” I joke and she turns to look at me before snorting and shaking her head, turning back around to look out.

I can’t help but to step up behind her, putting my hands on either side of her hips on the tall ledge. I can feel her body’s curves against me now, her warmth pressing into places that feel too good. I should step back, grab her hand and lead her away and back home. But I can't. I'm not ready to go back yet.

“I always thought I wanted to live in the city. Meet more people. Find a lover or something,” she says softly. “I learned that you can’t find love in the city,” she says softly. “Can’t find it in a small town either.”

“Where do you find it?”

“It’s not really about where, now is it? Doesn’t matter where. It’s about timing. And sometimes, people are too late and they go their whole lives feeling like they missed something,” she says, shivering a bit more in my hold.

“Sometimes you think too deeply after a lovely night out,” I say and one of my hands slips to her stomach and over her clothes. She laughs and places her small hand over my own.

“Thank you, Matty. You’re lovely.”

“I try.”

“I mean it. You are lovely. You're a wonderful person and she’s a lucky girl to have you so hung up on her. She must be something.”

I hum in agreement. I don't want to talk about The Writer. But we don't talk again. Not really. We silently hold hands as we leave and we take the late train back home, only a few people on it with us. I’m not surprised when I feel a familiar weight and the tickle of her short curly hair on my cheek. I smile when the weight gets heavier with the deeper she falls asleep on the train on my arm. I lay my head against hers and just bask in the silence until I feel the prickly sensation on my neck, letting me know someones staring.

I turn my head and find the culprit, a young man and girl sitting far from us, but close enough to see who I am. They nod at me and I nod back, causing them to laugh and give me a thumbs up before turning and leaving me alone. I let out a breath and pull Nia tighter to me, like a safety blanket.

I’m happy they didn’t disrupt this peace, that they didn’t take this moment from me.

I don't want to be famous right now, I just want to be me. I just want to sit on a train with a beautiful girl asleep on my arm.

 

..................................................................................................................

 

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Why? It's got kind of a spark, doesn't it?”

“Yeah. A lovely spark, it would look amazing burning to ashes.”

“You're so dramatic, Matty,” Nia huffs and tosses the most hideous and vile thing over her shoulder to keep with her to continue shopping.

“It's a green jean jacket, not a meat dress, you knob.”

“It's ugly.”

“No it's not. It's lovely. It's different. Not everything has to be monochromatic, you Emo kid. Life has color in it, so should we.”

“I took you to the city to see the lovely lights, like, three days ago and you take me to a consignment shop to witness this horror,” I say seriously, moving around the rack to stand in front of her, hands on her shoulders. “We should have an intervention. I'll invite Mrs. S.”

“Oh, stop,” she huffs, pairing it with an exaggerated eye roll and walking around me towards the dressing rooms (dressing closets, more like. They're  _ tiny) _

“Just. Remind me one more time why we're here again, Ni.”

She dragged me out of bed early this morning just to help her shop for whatever the Hell she was shopping for. The weird part is that I let her. I can remember countless of times that Gemma had tried to do the same thing, sometimes waking me just before the sunrise so I could watch it with her. I never did get up for her. I didn't really do a lot for her in general. Maybe gave her a few headaches.

“There's an art gallery I want to take you to,” she says a bit quieter now, more subdued than before with her playful countered banter about the abomination in her hands.

I nod, a snarky comment on the tip of my tongue just dying to get out and slice at her obvious vulnerability. “Ok,” is what I actually settle with. “Are you an art snob?” I ask, moving to sit in the chair right outside of her little curtain area.

I slump down in the chair and I look up when I hear rustling and through the crack of the purple curtain, I can see her stripping out of her long cardigan. The freckles on her face follow downwards as well, to her tanned shoulders and arms and some on her shoulders. I don't find out if they travel further down because my eyes skirt away quickly from her, landing on the giant pile of rejected clothes that has yet to be put back.

“No. Yes? I don't know. I just like looking at it, kind of wish I could do stuff like that too, ya know? Have talent and all.”

“Have you ever thought about sitting down and actually trying. Is that whats in those journals you keep?” I ask.

I hear an odd sort of laugh and I hear the snap of whatever she's trying on, the sound of her skin echoing in my brain.

“You're a nosy fucker, know that? But no, I haven't—I can appreciate what that kind of art stands for. I'm—I just know what I've always wanted to be. I've never really changed my mind on it. June always said I was a square, boring for knowing what I want and picking something dull but then she went and changed her major and now we have all the same  _ boring  _ classes together,” she laughs.

I smile at the thought of June, at the mention of something so seemingly innocent but so personal if you dug deep enough. Constantly wanting more and changing majors, she didn't know what she wanted. She wanted more.

“Now if it looks stupid, you can laugh because you said the jacket was ugly to start with.”

I snort and sit up a bit more, waiting impatiently for the curtain to open. It does and she comes out with the oversized green jacket and some tight, black assortment of clothes underneath. But I'm not focused on the curves of her body, or the hideousness of the coat. I'm focused on how the green material brings out the glow in her eyes and her nose ring, how the rolled up sleeves give away the slenderness of her wrists, and how the low cut top reveals the once hidden freckles on her chest.

“No laugh?” She asks slowly, hesitantly.

The temptation to ridicule her to cut through her skin and make her insecurity leak from her wound is strong. That's how I handle my own vulnerability, and the fact that I can have an inner monologue how she made a once ugly thing beautiful just by her wearing it is as vulnerable as I can handle (or not handle). But I can't. I nod and don't say anything else.

“So that's a yes to the ugly green jacket?”

“That's a yes to the ugly green jacket,” I laugh. And to the beautiful girl wearing it so brilliantly.

  
  


…............................................................................................

  
  


The gallery is quiet, with soft piano music playing inside. It's got big, wide windows and only a dozen or less of people inside of it with most of the exhibits nearly empty. When I went to the ones in Paris or New York, they were full and the constant low buzz of the chatter was distracting, and I was usually drunk off my ass or high out of my mind. I thought I could speak in colors.

Nia leads the way, stopping every few times to stare at a piece. It's nice. They're beautiful, and I can appreciate the art too, like she does. But then we stop at a strange one, some sort of clay thing with a naked couple. The woman is standing there with her skin being ripped clean off and a man attempting to almost crawl inside of it. She doesn't look like she's in pain, it's like she wants this.

“Funny you stopped at this one,” she says softly.

I turn my head to look down at her. “Why?”

“Local artist,” she says softly. “The mural, this is who did it. This is one of her last works,” Nia explains and looks at it. “Fucking gorgeous isn't it. Two become one sort of shit.”

“Is that what you would name it?” I ask her.

“Nah.”

“Do tell.”

She hums a bit as she thinks and then she smiles sweetly. “Please be naked.”

“Why?”

“Not naked in a sexual way. In a vulnerable way. One that has your lover peeling the layers of skin and armor away. Naked in the way that you're exposed but you're safe...together. Safe inside each other.”

I swallow thickly as I keep staring, looking at the little details of ripped skin and wrinkles all along the face. Laugh lines and crows feet, the gentle stare she gives her desperate lover.

The Artist. I'm looking at her art. Reality hits me and it makes my chest constrict, overwhelming me and gripping my heart tightly. I'm standing where The Writer was. Where they had wanted me to be, experiencing what they wanted me to see.

It's unbelievable. This moment is just...so insane. The realness of this piece, the raw emotion of what it feels like to be so in love and be completely terrified but so fucking ok with that. That's what someone does to you. It's falling into oblivion and being ok with not knowing.

They rip you open, right in the fucking chest and crawl inside and make a home out of the hole that they've created in you.

And if they leave, it hurts. It fucking hurts.

I don't say anything to reply to her, I just keep looking at the piece and feeling this moment, taking it in. The Artist and The Musician are here, me and whatevers left of The Artist, their soul—their art. And one day I'll stand here with The Writer and they won't know all that I went through to get here, and I hope it feels very similar if not exactly the way this moment feels now.

I realize then that I don't have to be on something to speak in colors, cause The Artist did with just their paint brush and talent. They did it with clay and their hands. They did it by showcasing their fears and their reality. Sometimes you don't have to speak a word to convey what you mean. Sometimes, you just got to fucking feel it. Nothing matters as long as you feel it and accept it.

All that matters is now, to Hell with the past or future.

My arm wraps around Nia slowly, pulling her closer to me and just staring ahead at the art. She's real. She's solid. She's here. She's here right now.

Oblivion is now.

It's now.

Right fucking now.

…...............................................................................................

 

“If you fall asleep on me one more time, I'm stealing your weed,” I threaten her as I take a hit from her bowl, sucking it deep into my lungs and holding it there for a bit before releasing it and taking another hit. We feel different, now, more relaxed, more secure. It's been like that since yesterday at the art gallery.

“I can't help it, honest. I can't ever sleep, usual. A diagnosed insomniac, I'm even on medication for it. I think the increase in smoking's helped, maybe.”

“Maybe,” I agree without really thinking. 

 

“Dude, you're gonna be absolutely baked,” she laughs and takes away the bowl from my hands.

“The only real way to enjoy events like these,” I say and smile a bit dopily.

“Well. We're ending this week on a positive,note. Completely blazed and the satisfaction of knowing we broke through our schedules and routines and had fucking fun.”

I nod and take back the weed again. I have this need to feel like my brains going to fly out of my skull, possibly run away with the circus or something like that.

When we finally make it out of her apartment, laughing over the smallest of things already and our eyes as red as the fucking---whatever's fucking red, it's only mid afternoon. We make our way over to the fair grounds, and I've been to festivals with better things than this one. But I've never been concerned with things like attempting to win prizes or laughing at clowns purposefully stumbling over their own feet.

I've never bought a cheap bracelet so I can ride the duct taped rides or get limitless refills on my giant cup. The darker it gets, the more the lights blur and time seems to slow down a bit the more sober I get.

Before I know it, sundown is threatening and I'm on top of the ferris wheel with Nia's head tucked against my arm. “Should slip the dude a twenty so he can keep us up here and we can have the best seat to the sunrise.”

I feel her laugh more than hear it. “Sunset,” she corrects me gently. “And nah. You wanna watch the sunset? I know the perfect place. Best view of the whole town.”

The ferris wheel moves again and we slowly make our descent and then we run, racing against time and the sun, running back into the town. I've never seen it this quiet, this empty. Everyone's back at the fair grounds and I wonder if maybe she's lead me astray or she has some evil plan.

We slow down as we approach the mural and my stomach clenches painfully, yearning. She distracts me by whistling at me to keep up, climbing the building and sitting on the ledge. It takes me a second, in my slowly sobering up mind struggling to tell my body to follow my brain's orders.

I make it up there just in time to sit down and watch the sky start to dim and sink into deep blue hues before the first firework is lit, it paints the whole town in different colors. The ferris wheel was a much more obvious place to watch this, but Nia was right, nothing beats sitting in The Tree to watch everything change. I can hear the patriotic music playing in the background and Nia’s eyes are wide and curious as she watches in silence the explosions in the sky, my smile fading a bit and forgetting about the fireworks in lieu of watching her now, every pop in the distance is a new splatter of color across her own cheeks

The Writer could be down there, could be enjoying the show, their skin could be changing different colors , too, and their ears buzzing with the cacophonous sounds of the local fair. They could also be somewhere else entirely, somewhere that’s just not here. But right here, right now, in this very exact moment, I find myself unable to sadly dwell on it too much. Sure, there’s a small ache for The Writer to share this moment with me, but it’s overshadowed by the fact that I’ve already got someone beside of me to share this with.

I always talk shit about John Green, or whatever. He’s gotten a lot of things wrong, romanticizing the strangest of things. But one thing I’ve finally come to realize that he got right was how long it takes to fall for someone--it’s like falling asleep; gradually and then all at once. 

 

My hand is slow in its movements, hesitantly leaving the safety of my lap to reach and seek out the warmth of Nia's. We've held hands before but this time it's different. This time when we lace our fingers together, I feel a small spark and I don't push down the thoughts of wanting her. I don't let go. I don't hid behind quotes of The 

Letter to remind me of why I'm here. I don't see Nia as a distraction. She's more than that.

  
We don't talk during the firework show, we stay silent as it continues until she finally falls asleep on my shoulder like I expected her to. I smile gently down at her as she takes slow breaths, resting peacefully, trusting me to keep her safe out here when she's vulnerable—so exposed. And I can’t help but think how much I like it when she sleeps, for she’s so beautiful, yet, so unaware of it. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This hasn't been read through by my editor dude, and he's going to be pissed I posted this without his go. But this is kind of raw for me and I'm a little vulnerable right now and I have a need to let that part of me be visible and I did that through this chapter. So here you go.
> 
> Enjoy....hopefully. :)

“Are you staying?” Nia asks me, words slow with sleep, slurring together as she undresses right in front of me in her room.

I shouldn't. I should go home, I should end the night with us asleep in our own beds, but I'm still a bit high from our night togeter- it's not even the weed that has me feeling like this. The need to be close to someone, to let my guard down a bit. “Yeah,” I finally reply after the internal debate, “too tired to walk home,” I explain softly and my fingers shake as I use them to grip my shirt and take it off, heart pounding against my chest once its bare.

We both slip under the covers and she grins at me once we're settled in to our respective sides. I roll my eyes fondly at her. “Don't be so grouchy,” she laughs, poking my stomach. “How can you sleep in jeans?”

“I'm not grouchy, quit assuming things,” I playfully scold her. “And they're not so bad. I've slept in my jeans more times than I can count, comes with the job, really,” I say, not noticing the slip up.

But she nods and doesn't comment on it. She doesn't say anything, not for a while. It's enough to make me think she's fallen asleep or something until she finally does speak up again. “I'm scared.”

“Don't be. I'll keep the monsters away,” I say playfully.

She huffs and laughs, shaking her head as she hides some of her face in her pillow. “Not of that, twat.”

“Of what then?”

“Of being alone,” she says, voice so low it's a whisper now.

There's a lump in my throat now, one that stops me from comforting her. How can I comfort her when I'm scared of the same fucking thing? That's why I'm in this fucking town.

“Me too,” I admit to her honestly instead of insincerely trying to give her some halfassed excuse of why she shouldn't be.

We're all scared of being alone. We're scared of being together. It's not a win win situation, it hurts either way.

“But it's different for you,” she starts,” you've got—you've got someone waiting for you. I ruined what I had, I ruined everything I used to know because I wanted more, ya know?”

“Nia, there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting more. Trust me, I literally ruin everything I touch because I always end up wanting more. But I've just always been that way, every time I've settled for something it's just bit me in the ass. It's like instant gratification shit, in the long run it's not good for you. You think it fills the void now, but all it does is make it bigger in the end beause then you get rid of it and it's twice as big. Settling isn't good for the heart, it's science. Look it up.”

“But like, you've actually got something for you, Matty. Outside of here, you've got someone waiting for you and a career that makes you sleep in your jeans,” she says and laughs a bit. “I've got a video store and I—that's pretty much it. I can't—when people used to ask us back in high school where we saw ourselves when we were in our twenties, everyone had their life plan and everyone had an answer. I never did. I couldn't see myself anywhere, and that's still true to this day. I don't know where I'm going or that if I'm ever even going to go, I'm just stuck. Just fucking stuck.”

“Ni,” I whisper, my hands coming up to cradle her face gently, rubbing my thumbs against the skin soothingly. Fucking Gemma would shit her pants if she could see me now, actually being a decent human for once. “It's not like that, I don't—you have—it's like—ugh!” I groan in frustration when the words I want to say get all jumbled up in my brain.

She laughs anyways, her own hands coming up and wrapping around my wrists to keep me there. “Matty, it's ok. I'm not asking you to console me or whatever, I just—it's just nice to have someone listen every once in a while.

“I'm not trying to, like, console you. Consoling sounds like I'm trying to bullshit something to make you stop feeling this way. It's like, Nia, you're bigger than this. You're so much more than this shitty little town deserves.”

“Well, some of us maybe aren't meant to escape their little hells.”

“No, they're not. But you're one of them that is. You're not just someone, you're not just a face in a crowd. You're—you're--I don't have the words right now, I think I'm still a little high and very much knackered, but you're not just someone, love,” I argue. I'm good at arguing when I think I'm right. “You're not someone that can just get lost in a sea of people. You're not going to stay stuck here forever and die without ever having done anything about it. You can't. You owe it to yourself to be brave and leave this place. I know it's comfortable and pretty much all that you know, but you'll never get where you want to be if you just stay here.”

“Well right here, right now, it doesn't feel so bad,” she whispers to me and the small confession has her cheeks warming up under my hands.

I can say something to fuck this moment up. I can ruin it all. I can tell her about The Writer, tell her she's just been a distraction until June gets back and I can meet her. But I don't. I can't. I can't keep fighting this pull I have to her, I can't keep holding back. So I don't.

I lean forward and rest my forehead against hers, connecting us at more points in our bodies. It would be so easy for me to kiss her, to close the final distance and find out what she tastes like sleepy and vulnerable.

My hands could slide down from her face and down to her back, feel the dips and curves of her spine and pull her closer to where I want her to be. So easy to just flip her on her back and finally, _finally_ get her under me so that I can hover over her and watch the surprise flash in her eyes, watch her chest rise and fall. Her nails would rake down my chest and down to where I need to feel her and then pin her hands before she takes too much control. I can imagine her like that, under me and just waiting, chest heaving and tempting my mouth.

I swallow thickly and keep my eyes closed, forehead still against hers. I don't close the distance between our mouths, even if I can feel the ghost of a kiss from her breath on my too-chapped lips. I settle for this moment, I tell myself this is enough. Just this.

We fall asleep tangled up together, waking up when her alarm goes off and she quietly slips out of bed and tells me she's got work in a little bit but that I'm welcome to stay until she gets back. And I only slightly fight her to stay in bed a little bit longer because the bed is cold without her. And I only stay after she leaves because I'm too sleepy to.

As to what reasons I have to keep sleeping over and staying, I haven't come up with any yet.

 

…..................................................

 

“If you put your cold ass toes on me one more time, I'm going to shove you off the bed,” I laugh, face pressed into the side of her head so I can talk in her ear, who knew diners could get so loud?

She laughs loudly and leans away, swatting at my chest playfully. “But I'm cold. I have like an unnaturally low body temperature.”

“You don't fucking say,” I reply sarcastically, taking a few steps up to the register but we're still behind a couple of people. It's funny, though. I don't recognize any of them. The younger generation here really does keep to themselves and out of the way. I wonder what's brought them out here, especially in the middle of the night.

“Ok, whatever. You're just unnaturally warm.”

“And inhumanly fast,” I murmur. She stops laughing, her smile melts right off her face and warps into a concerned look and _I_ get concerned too. “What's wrong?”

“Was that a _Twilight_ quote?”

I groan inwardly. And outwardly. And sideways, through my ears and eyes until I'm made of unpleasant groans. “Oh, hush, you. My ex girlfriend loved the movies and she used to watch—oh shut up. Stop. It's not even that funn—ok, sleep alone tonight.”

“No!” She shouts and everyone turns to glare at her as if she's the only offensively loud person here. “No,” she giggles, much softer now and falls closer to me until she's practically in my arms and I make no move to move my arms away from her. Instead I shield her, I protect her from the nasty young people around, using my arms as a defense. “Don't be like that,” she says and smiles up at me, her eyes a bit sleepy now that she's been fed and had her giggle session. “How will I warm up my toes?”

“And exactly how is that my problem?” I reply easily but she knows she's won.

There's a familiarity in this fight. The twinkling eyes with the long stares, the lingering touches we brush off. It's familiar because it's something I haven't had in a while but I have had before. That intimacy with someone that goes that goes beyond just fucking around. It delves deeper, it builds a trust, it makes us fixated with one another like we're a bunch of drug addicts and the only fix is each other's skin, a socially acceptable form of cannibalism. It's a trust and bond that forms from more than one naked, sweaty night.

And it's bloody terrifying because everyone else basks in the glow of it all and all I've ever done is run from it. Even now I feel my basic sense kick in, the fight or flight responses flaring up in the pit of my stomach as I stare into dangerously brown eyes. My gut tells me to run and run as far away as possible as soon as possible because this can only end one way.

But I've never been good at trusting internal body organs, anyways.

 

….............................................................

 

“Can I get the mocha coffee with almond milk, please?” Nia orders to the barista.

“I'll take—fuck. What's good? I'm a tea man.”

“Fuck tea.”

“You're British, what do you mean fuck tea?” I ask in outrage.

“I mean fuck tea,” she repeats and grins up at me and I refuse to order anything but some fruity little thing because fuck her.

Something inside of me stirs, it tells me I want to and I tell it to shut up and shove the thought so far down that I forget it even came across my mind.

“You're so picky,” she accuses as she leads the way to a little table in the corner.

“What you're going to pretend we don't exist? Too good for us now that you don't have June with you?” Someone says from beside of us and we both turn, seeing a group of blokes around our age just hanging out with a couple of girls littered between.

“Oh shit, I didn't even see you there, mate,” Nia laughs and walks over to hug the one that's just talked.

I school my face into perfect neutrality, set my mouth into a tight line and my eyebrows knit up in pure apathy.

“Who's this that you've got with you, love?” He asks her, referring to me. His eyes rake over me, looking me up and down and I bite my tongue so that the words _Mate, I've got no problem with dudes checking me out but I don't swing that way for blokes that look like you_ don't come out of my mouth.

“It's just a mate of mine. This is Matty. Matty, this is my friend Tank.”

“Tank?” I ask, unable to help the snort that follows. “Did your mum actually name you that or did prison give you that nickname?”

“Actually, it was my girlfriend,” he says, smiling widely as he hugs close some woman next to him.

I look down at my shoes, suddenly they seem a lot more interesting than this conversation.

“You too good to call a mate, now? To even text him to let him know you're alive? Is that boy here distracting you from the real world?” He asks her and I watch him wink at her and I watch a delicate blush creep on her cheeks and spread down to her neck, making her freckles nearly invisible for a few moments.

“No. It's—I've just been busy.”

“You were always a sucker for romance.”

So was Gemma. Until I fucked some girl on tour and ripped Gemma's heart to shreds. Because everything I touch I ruin, somehow.

“Am not. And-

“We're just mates,” I interrupt. “No romance.”

Nia looks up at me for a few seconds and nods. “Yeah,” she agrees and looks back down at everyone else. “Just friends.”

“Well, _just friends_ are either of you down for a good night tonight?”

 

…....................................

 

I breathe in deeply through my noise, listening and getting lost in the noise around me; the random sound of machinery going on and off, working hard to allow this moment to happen. There's loud cheering around me, calling out my name and I can feel it.

I can feel their eyes on me, all of their eyes focused on just me.

I can't fuck this up.

I open my eyes and stare ahead, taking a few steps froward and cocking my arm back and throwing the bowling ball so hard it jumps into the next lane. A chorus of excited shouts erupt from behind me and I raise my arms in victory and turn to see Nia burying her face in her hand in second hand embarrassment.

“I never knew how shit you were at basic human essentials,” she groans as I walk over and sit down next to her, casually draping an arm behind her on the little seat.

“Since when is bowling a basic human essential, darling?” I ask her, snorting in disbelief. “Besides, we're aiming to destroy everyone else's game, not knock down pins.”

“How do you manage to ruin bowling, Matthew? How?” She asks and looks up from her hand and she looks at me with wide, brown eyes. She's been caught off guard by our proximity.

My eyes look into hers and trace down the freckles all the way to her mouth where a particularly dark one rests on her cupid's bow, making it look a little crooked if you stare hard enough. Which I already do. Sometimes. My hand grips the chair a bit tighter as I turn my head to look at the bowling balls ahead of me.

“A round of beers on me if you can make your ball down three of these alleys,” I bet the man that's sitting on the otherside of the little area.

“Oh, mate, you're on,” he laughs and stands up, moving to his own lane to throw it.

“Can you actually even bowl, Matty?” Nia asks, leaning back into the back of the chair and my fingers barely brush her skin.

“Yeah. Well, I don't know. I can't remember. I've never done this sober,” I admit lightly daring to let my fingers press a little more into her arm before I remove my own arm from around her and lean forward, putting my elbows on my knees as I watch.

I have a tendency to fuck things up. To fuck people up. To get too attached, confuse feelings and send everything to Hell. I'm not here for Nia. I'm here for The Writer. Nia is my friend. That's it. She's--

“You're a terrible influence, Matty,” she whispers in my ear, just her breath alone sends some extra blood down south.

I've imagined this too many times. Too many times that I've pinned her hips beneath mine, stolen her breath and taken it as my own, left her with the inability to think or speak anything that's not my name and the word _more._ I've tasted her mouth and neck and between her legs countless of times in my dreams and I know how warm her mouth is when it's wrapped around my cock. But I know the fantasy version of her.

“Who exactly is influencing who, Mrs Nia---Nia isn't a good enough name to play scold you with, you know,” I say, distracting both of us from a possible future that shouldn't exist.

“It's a nickname, it's meant to be short and adorable.”

“Too bad its owner isn't any of those things,” I reply with a wicked grin.

“Good. Short and adorable is overrated. I want to be tall and sexy.”

“You're not those either though,” I laugh and shake my head, patting her knee and standing up.

“No. It's my turn, asshole. Sit down,” she scolds me and stands up too. “Ready?”

“For what?” I ask her and watch as she walks up to the line and winks at me before bowling it as hard as she can and the ball skips across three lanes.

“That round of beers,” she replies as she walks back towards me and I smirk down at her. This is the moment when I lean in and kiss her, congratulate her with a soft noise against her mouth that I know she'll understand. It's when she'll cling to me for a few moments longer and then we part and just smile stupidly at each other like a couple of kids in high school.

Instead I just nod and turn around, leaving her to celebrate the victory with the other dudes that casually joined our game without us even noticing. I keep my distance, I keep us platonic, I hand her her drink and pretend our fingers don't brush together or that our eyes don't linger on each other.

On our way back to hers, she makes her way up the stairs and then stops when she notices me on the street still. “You coming?” She asks, laughing as she makes her way back down to me.

“I—uh—no,” I say bluntly.

“Okay,” she says slowly and makes a little face of confusion.

“Yeah. See you.”

“You alright?” She asks me before I can go. “You've just been...off,” she says and looks me over.

I shake my head and shrug my shoulders. “No. I'm fine.”

The truth is is that I'm not fine. That George won't return my texts and Adam is about to propose to his long time girlfriend. My mum keeps asking me where I am and to come home while my dad and brother muck about. Which hurts the worst because Louis is supposed to be on my side, he's supposed to have my back.

And there's This Letter that's been sitting neglected on my night stand because I have a silly girl with crazy short blonde hair that won't quit distracting me.

“Matty, are--

“I said I'm fine. God, what is it with everyone here? You're all so bloody nosey all the damn time,” I snap at her.

“Wow, you're a prick. Call me when you've taken your head out of your ass,” she huffs and turns around without another word.

In my head, I walk after her. I call her name and she turns around and the truth mixed with apologies tumble out of my mouth and she forgives me. But she's gone by the time my little head fantasy is up and I can't help but think how similar this is to when me and Gemma used to fight, how she'd walk away and I couldn't be bothered enough to follow her or even stop her. Shit. I can't ever remember apologizing to her.

 

…....................................

 

“Oh, you're home early,” Mrs. S says, eyeing me curiously as she moves around her kitchen, making her nightly tea.

“Yeah, well, here I am,” I say and sit down on one of the island chairs.

“A bit of a lover's quarrel?” She asks, face scrunching up in sympathy.

“Something like that,” I reply and shake my head. 

“Nia's a bit of a spitfire,” Mrs. S starts. “She's---Matty, are you alright?”

I look up at her, eyes squinting in confusion. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Because you have sad eyes,” she says and I look away from her stare. “Sad eyes that border on hollow. I've seen that look before,” she whispers and places her hand over mine, “and had I done something, said something about it then maybe, maybe my life would be a little different right now.”

I nod slowly.

“Matty, you can't keep hiding, love. You can't keep this up. The hollowed look means you're empty because you want something more than you think you can ever get but that's not true. You get whatever you're looking for in some way or another, you just have to open your eyes and pay attention. You have to be brave and take what you want.”

“I don't know if I can. I don't know if I should, or if it'll happen. Hell, I don't even know if I'm in the right place with the right people. I--

“Quit thinking about the what ifs, those don't exist. Look at what's right in front of you. You're exactly where you need to be because you chose to be here. You're still here for some reason or another and you'll leave when that reason is finally done.”

I nod slowly and the thought of leaving finally comes to my mind. I've been here for what feels like ages, just hiding away from the rest of the world, searching for The Writer....

To leave? That's...that's a strange thought. One that I ignore and shove down into the darkest corners of my mind, it's not something I'm willing to deal with quite yet.

No. I have another priority on my list.

 

…...................................................

“I thought you were the forgiving type?” I ask Nia at work the next day, the only response I get is silence. “Nia. This is ridiculous.”

“Have you come here to apologize or call me names?”

“I didn't say _you_ were ridiculous, I said _this_ was ridiculous,” I point out.

She rolls her eyes and grabs a stack of movies, moving to put them in their rightful homes. “Matty, why're you here?” She asks, not even bothering to look at me and I think it's worse. I like it when there's anger and screaming, but this? This cold, it-doesn't-phase me shit gets my blood boiling.

“I—I don't—I just wanted to talk,” I say and shrug.

“Talk?” She asks and looks up at me finally.

“Yeah.”

“You can't fucking say it, can you? You don't know how to apologize!” She grits out through clenched teeth and turns away to the desk when a customer comes in. “Sorry, sir, we don't have double fisting anal porn,” she says loudly and I look at her with a weird expression. “But we do have _I'm a Cunt_ which features an extensive list of assholes on the screen. I'm pretty sure you're featured in it.”

I laugh humorlessly as the other customer looks at the two of us. “You are something else, aren't you? Quit being childish.”

“Don't tell me what to do.”

“Wow, haven't heard that one before, what're you, five?”

“What are you, a new born that doesn't know when to fucking apologize?”

“I came here for a truce.”

“Truce? Ha!” She laughs out. “That's not how life works, Matty. There are no truces except in the government when they're too much of pricks to admit they fucked up. Us normal people apologize when we do bad things, not agree to look the other way and pretend everything is peachy.”

“You're right,” I say slowly and I see her stance shift from defensive to something more relaxed. “I don't know how to apologize. Have a great fucking day,” I hiss and turn to leave.

This is what I'm good at. I'm good at being everything people don't fucking want.

…............................................

 

I swirl the dark amber liquid around in the short glass, looking at it and contemplating it. I can smell the alcohol in it, it wakes something up in me. A thirst that I haven't felt in a while.

“You gon' drink that or keep looking at it like it's gonna eat ya'?” Someone asks and I look up and nod at the man, he's from the other night at the bowling alley.

“Never got your name the other night,” I reply as he sits down next to me.

“You did, actually. But it's Tank.”

I snort and put the glass down, nodding in agreement. “Yeah. Yeah. Did your mum or prison name you that?” I ask jokingly and he laughs too.

“What's your name again? Or I shouldn't have to ask, should I?”

I shake my head. “Not if you're a local or have better memory than me.”

“Not even then, either,” he says and I take a second to process what he's said. “What's a guy like you doing in a place like this?”

“Long fucking story, mate. But I'm gon'--

“Nah. Don't go. Your secrets safe with me,” he says and winks. “Bars are for the sad and lonely. What're you doing here?” He asks.

“Well. I'm here for what bars are made for. To drink.”

“Haven't done much of that, have ya though?'

“Well. I'm—I'm just—I'm so in over my fucking head,” I groan and rub my eyes tiredly.

“I heard about the spat with your girl,” he says.

“She's not my girl,” I correct him. “I met her when I first came here and she's just, I don't know.”

“She's a warm body.”

“No,” I say and make a face, “no it's not like that. She's just...my friend.”

“Friends don't usually have such public spats like that, do they? At least me and mine don't, don't know about how you famous lot do it, though. I suppose you're used to the spotlight and all that.”

“It's definitely not like that,” I say slowly and will myself to increase my patience.

“Then what is it?” He asks.

“It's really fucking complicated.”

“Look. Me and my mates are throwing something tonight and you should come, get your mind off of things and shit,” he says.

I mull it over for a few moments. Fuck it.

 

….............................

 

I missed this. I missed the long necks, cold with sweat. The curved bodies with a promise of more. I missed the taste, fucking hell, the taste. My mouth greedily laps it all up, every last drop from the bottle of wine.

The buzz is almost immediate, making my head feel light years away but my body heavy as an anchor, keeping me grounded. The music is loud and the bodies around me are warm and friendly, feminine hands gently crawling up my clothed chest and pulling me around whichever way they want. I feel myself breathing harder, leaning down to grab the hips in front of me and burying my face in their neck. But the smell is wrong. Their hair isn't tickling me in the right places, the coarseness isn't making me itch. They don't have freckles on their shoulders that I can connect with my tongue.

I step back when I finish that thought, looking around the room full of strangers. I'm used to this—should be used to this. It's my fucking job to be in a room full of strangers, but now it's—now it feels wrong. Now I seek out the comfort of a familiar face.

When Tank said him and his friend were throwing something, I figured a small house party, a get back or get down or whatever the Hell they're called. I didn't expect it to be in some shitty warehouse looking thing in the middle of the woods where there's no one around to call the cops on a noise complaint. Apparently everyone that's under the age of 29 is in here, grinding their hips and drinking until they forget they live in a shitty ass town.

So where's Nia?

Or the wine. I'll settle for more wine, this bottle was almost empty when I finally got my hands on it. Classy fucks, they have wine. I like that.

My head swirls a bit as I make my way through the bodies, shoving a few out of my way as I make my way into the designated bar area, looking for something else to quench my thirst. I try not to think of The Writer or of Nia. I try to forget them both by grabbing another bottle by the neck, bringing the rim of it to my lips and chugging down some more.

Something inside of me awakens, it rolls around in the delight, vibrates with the buzz this drink gives me already. But then it stops and demands more. I move to grab more but there's a blonde in my way. I grab her arm, already pulling her towards me when her head snaps and her eyes are blue—piercing blue and not the soft dark ones I'm used to. I let go.

The music feels hollow. I can feel it beating against my chest, vibrating my skin until my limbs ache to move with it. But it's all—it's all—it's all just fucked up. I'm a grown man standing in the middle of some weird house party in the middle of fucking nowhere and all I want to do is crawl into bed and talk about which poets were the prattiest with Nia.

When the fuck did I turn from not being able to exist within my own head to actually haunting someones bed? When the fuck did I become a punchline to a song? When did she invade my mind and take over?

I let out a breath I didn't even notice I was holding. It's shaky. I'm shaky. My foundations been cracked and I feel everything I've ever built up for is slowly starting to crumble and I don't have anyone to lean on. I just have my two skinny legs to hold me upright. They've never felt like enough before, but now they'll have to do. They have to keep me upright.

My eyes scan across the crowd again, hopeful to see a familiar face and when that hope is granted, I have to scan again to make sure it's not my mind playing tricks on me. But no, it's not. There's curly, peroxide blonde hair standing in the corner, her large nose ring shining in the strange strobe lights they've got going on. She sways with the music slowly.

And I sit there and wonder for a second: do I want what's right in front of me or oblivion? Do I want what's tangible or what I wanted from the beginning?

Oblivion is scary, it's massive and big with endless possibilities of the future. Relationships are oblivio, love is oblivion because it's a shout into the void. Either I watch them grow old with me or I spend the rest of my life pretending they never existed. It's fucking terrifying.

It's giving someone the power to rip you to shreds and being ok with that. So yeah, I'm pretty fucking terrified.

But—but can it all be so bad? Is oblivion that scary when it's two big hazel eyes staring into mine? When there's countless of freckles I've spent connecting into little patterns in my head? Is it that scary when she's standing in the same room as me and I can't do anything but watch her move in the dim lights?

Is it scarier to think this can be the last time I see her?

Suddenly I feel sober. I feel my head clear up and I'm walking towards her without another thought.

“Nia!” I shout over the music, reaching out to grab her, to just touch her.

“What?” She snaps.

“I fucked up,” I say bluntly.

“You did.”

“I was a dick.”

“You were.”

“And I'm sorry I didn't come up to your room with you,” I say and that gets her attention.

She furrows her eyebrows and she shakes her head a bit in disbelief. “What?”

“I'm sorry. I—routines scare me. I'm bad at them. I have a tendency to muck things up,” I explain. “I—I just--

“Matty, what's going on in your head, love?” She asks, grabbing my hands and pulling me towards her and away from the music, leading me upstairs into the attic.

“What're--

“I got tired of you shouting at me over the music,” she explains softly. “Now talk.”

“I---I – Nia, I can't get you out of my head. I can--

“No,” she stops him quickly. “You don't get to do that. You don't get to just be a complete dick to me and then turn around and say shit like that. You--

“Nia. I'm sorry. It's been an internal struggle, do you know how hard it is? I came here for one reason only and then you came into my life like fucking Miley Cyrus on that stupid ball!” I say, voice getting loud for no reason.

“Exactly! You don't get to pit me against another woman. You don't get to—you don't get to do that to someone, Matty. She saved your life. You told me you owed her, you're in love with her. But she's not here and you're lonely and I'm here. I'm always fucking second choice and I'm done with that. I can't compete with her and I can't do this to myself. I can't—you can't fall for the moment and think you've fallen for the girl,” she says softly.

I reach out to her, grabbing her face gently in my hands. “I'm not,” I say softly. “Nia. You're not competing with anyone. There's no fucking competition. I can't—I can't even remember she exists sometimes. It's—I've been---Nia, I fucking want you!”

“Matty, I can't keep doing this!” She shouts, her eyes beginning to water.

Something in me breaks a bit. I did that. I broke through her armor. I got under her skin and I pulled the insecurities and pain out.

"I can't keep just,” she starts, “ I can't keep this back and forth up. I can't keep lying to myself. I'm just—I'm sorry. I can't be picked as a second choice again. I'm not a temporary replacement. I--

I grab her face and I silence her, swallowing her words and tasting her _finally._ It's not what I imagined. It's not soft or pliant. She's angry and I can taste the salt from her tears. I can taste the anger, feel the hurt when she pushes me away a bit and then chases after my mouth with her own.

“Do--” she breathes out against my mouth. “Do you really want me?” She whispers, her voice soft and vulnerable.

I can still taste her on my tongue. She tastes like wine, the sweet kind that I've poured into a glass a few times and I've sipped from gently whilst listening to music that made my soul ache.

She's the kind of drink I've craved when it's late at night and I wanted to feel warm again. She;s the kind that slips into my blood stream without me even noticing, the kind that's warmed me up from this inside out, made me feel loose lipped enough to reveal the ugly parts of me and she's turned them into art and drunken poetry. She's a fake heat that can't protect me from the cold, but, my God, I'll pretend she will.

She's the type I take to bed and lay down with and she lulls me into a deep sleep. She's the peace I never noticed I needed.

The Writer's whiskey in a shot glass. She's the drink I take directly from the bottle when I'm most desperate for a taste of peace.

They're the ghost in the bottle, the worst memories I'll ever have. The Writer will burn when they go down my throat and they always hurt worse in the morning when I'm bent over the toilet, my body rejecting them and attempting to get them out of my system before they stay in my like a quiet poison.

The Writer bangs inside my head until I can't see.

I'll reek of their smell on my skin, I won't be able to hide what I've done from anyone.

And the same warmth Nia promises me on cold November nights, is the same warmth I'll hate in the middle of Summer in midst of my hungover hazes with nameless, faceless bodies sharing my bed with me.

The Writer will burn me from the inside out.

I'll never find peace, not with them. Because they're the ghost in my head, and ghosts never sleep.

I don't want ghosts in my head. I don't want skeletons in my closet. I want cold toes on my back and snarky comments in the morning and little post it notes with emojis.

I want Nia

“I want you.”

I kiss her again, deep and slow, taking my time to taste her again, to memorize it. I swallow her soft sounds, feeling as her fingers slide up under my shirt.

“Will you still want me in the morning?”

“I'll sleepover and we can find out,” I reply softly against her mouth.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, I'm in a bit of a weird place right now. I really hope you guys enjoyed it and maybe my editor dude won't be too pissed ;P

**Author's Note:**

> tumble me at http://the-nineteen-seventy-pie.tumblr.com/


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